


The Polyjuice Fantasy File

by Andante825



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Bisexual Draco Malfoy, Confident Harry, Gift Fic, I Swear There Is Drarry, Multi, Multiple Pairings, My First Fanfic, Polyjuice Potion, no slut shaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-12-01
Packaged: 2018-10-08 19:14:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10394205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andante825/pseuds/Andante825
Summary: During his final year at Hogwarts, a nearly destitute Draco Malfoy launches the Polyjuice Fantasy Fuck (PFF), marketing the chance for students and staff to grasp the unattainable. His venture brings him gold, gratitude, and a growing obsession with his own green-eyed PFF. Inspired by Desert_Sea's "An Hour of Snape."





	1. Inspiration

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Desert_Sea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desert_Sea/gifts).
  * Inspired by [An Hour of Snape](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8456932) by [Desert_Sea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desert_Sea/pseuds/Desert_Sea). 



> Credit goes to the wickedly talented Desert_Sea for Draco's entrepreneurial spirit and the Polyjuice Fantasy Fuck. Credit for Harry Potter and the wizarding world goes to the very gracious J.K. Rowling, who lets us all play in this endless sandbox.
> 
> Story is AU after Year 5/OotP. Suggestions for future pairings are encouraged - this is my first fanfic, and while I have an outline for the central relationship, I'm flexible otherwise. HG/SS is already covered in "An Hour of Snape," and really, you should go read this seminal work. Right now. I'll be happy to wait until you get back.

For the first time in his life, Draco Malfoy is rich.

After he was exonerated of all evil in the legal sense – two weeks after The Boy Who Wouldn’t Die handed Voldemort his arse on the lawn of Malfoy Manor, with the Order of the Phoenix casting a magic-suppressing net over the field of battle (Potter had strode out, gleaming in the sun like some Arthurian knight, and cut the Dark Lord down with a silver sword) – Draco had assumed life would go on as before.

How fucking naïve was he?

His father, who had relied again on the Imperius defence, poisoned himself en route to Azkaban. The family ring appeared on Draco’s hand, its seal rotated to reveal the empty well, in the middle of breakfast with his mother. She clawed at her face and screamed until Crawley, their remaining house elf, Apparated her from the chateau directly to St. Mungo’s.

The Malfoy vaults were frozen. After Narcissa’s stay in hospital, the Ministry traced her whereabouts and the French Auror force confiscated the chateau. With direct (baffling, inexplicable) intercession from Potter, Draco was permitted to stay in a warded-off wing of the Manor, along with Narcissa and Crawley.

One night in early July, Draco woke to a grinding crash that had him rolling out of bed, wand in hand. The moon was bright and through the window he saw what appeared to be the east wing spread over the lawn, dust rising from its wreckage like malevolent spirits. Running toward his mother’s terrified shrieks, Draco reflected that the spell-damaged stones had held for nearly eight weeks after the battle, only to crumble in a summer breeze.

He sympathized.

On Potter’s birthday, the Ministry handed round champagne and Orders of Merlin. The Malfoys were not present at the gala, but saw in the next day’s _Prophet_ that the Chosen One had chosen to sign over Bellatrix's personal vault and the Lestrange family vaults to Andromeda Tonks and Neville Longbottom, respectively. Between them, these vaults contained most of the Black family heirlooms.

September saw Draco at Hogwarts with last year’s robes, secondhand books, and a letter to his godfather from his mother, begging access to Severus’ potions stores.

Potions had always been his favorite subject, but only Muggles, Mudbloods, and non-Malfoys worked for a living. He had never really tried to develop his raw natural talent. (Why bother, when Granger outperformed him anyway.)

He read the letter, of course. His mother seemed to believe that if he did not secure a Potions apprenticeship post-Hogwarts, they would both starve and die.

“I cannot even sell my jewelry, as it may be taken for reparations,” Narcissa wrote. “My dearest friend, please help us. Draco is not untalented in your field. Whatever efforts you may make on our behalf, I shall always remember.”

But Snape had worries of his own. Exonerated, yes, with Dumbledore’s testimony, but still disliked, feared, isolated. The only effort he makes, so far as Draco can tell, is turning a blind eye to his regularly depleted Potions stores.

And then: the breakthrough.

***

Not many Slytherins return to Hogwarts. Millie and Tracey transfer to Beauxbatons; Pansy elopes with a half-blood Italian nobleman and moves to Milan, where she and Blaise run a boutique. Vince was accidentally killed by his own father in the Battle at Malfoy Manor. Greg is back, but doesn't seem to be speaking. Theo rarely spends the night in his own bed.

So Draco has most of the boys’ dorm to himself. Severus, upon pestering, admits to setting up a small personal lab in his own seventh year, using a ventilation duct hidden behind the fourth bed on the left.

Following his godfather's grudging direction, Draco shrinks the bed, sets up blast-proof shields, and offers a ten-percent profit share to Greg, with the caveat that they both run the risk of fumes, explosions, and limp, stringy hair that comes with Potions work in close quarters.

The first thing Draco brews is Polyjuice.

He hasn’t gone out in public for months, but the adulation heaped on Potter, Granger, and (shudder) Weasley is, he imagines, the inverse of what he can expect the first time he ventures to Diagon Alley or even to Hogsmeade. His hair is damnably recognizable.

So he brews Polyjuice, and just for the hell of it, he turns himself into Granger.

“Hello there,” Theo rumbles from the doorway. “What's your name, pretty thing? I know it's not Granger. She's up in the library, swotting for Scotland.”

Of course the one time he’s standing naked while female in front of a Transfigured mirror, experimentally pinching one peach-colored nipple, is the one time Nott pulls his dick out of the idiotic Gryffindor he's shagging and deigns to barge in.

“My name is get the fuck out of here, Theo!”

His so-called friend bursts out laughing. “Oh Merlin, your voice – with that face – and those tits –”

“They’re a bit scary, aren’t they?” Draco mutters, turning back to the mirror. “I didn’t know tits could be shrill.”

“If they could talk, they’d be yapping their heads off,” Theo agrees. “Pert little things. Mind if I –” He makes the universal squeezing motion.

“Sure,” Draco says, blinking slowly. His eyes, in the mirror, are the color of sunlight through amber. “Ten Galleons.”

Theo considers, then opens his trunk.

“Make it twenty and you can take your time,” Draco says, admiring Granger’s callipygous arse over one slim shoulder. “Greg knows how to fucking knock, he won’t bother us.”

So Theo Nott feels up Hermione Granger in the privacy of the Slytherin seventh-year boys' dorm, and Draco feels him harden against his (her?) round perfect buttocks, and Draco thinks, _What the hell._

What happens next, although Draco doesn’t know it yet, is the maiden voyage of the Polyjuice Fantasy Fuck.

The big flaw, which he realizes as Theo is stroking his strangely firm clit with one thumb and telling him he’s fantasized about coming all over every inch of that milky-smooth skin for the past three years, is that he can’t speak. Not as a girl, anyway, and maybe not as a boy, either. He has a somewhat nasally voice, he’s been told, although it sounds just fine inside his own head.

“Oh Theo, take me now,” he drawls with Granger’s pink mouth. “You’ve set my womanly petals all a-flutter.”

“Draco, goddammit,” Theo says. “Don’t make me gag you. Wait, can I gag you?”

That’s one solution, but to realize his plan’s full economic and social potential, he’s going to have to perfect the formula.

Draco nixes the gag, but sets up a regular appointment with Theo, who wants Hermione Granger so badly he’s fucking Lavender Brown just for the chance to lean one bed over and smell his beloved's disgusting, hair-strewn pillow. (Draco doesn’t know why other Houses fail to ward their beds, but he’s unsurprised.) Theo comes back from these trysts with long curly brown hairs eight times over the next two months, and pays a hundred Galleons a pop for all-out fucking. Thank Merlin the bushy-haired menace is minus a hymen, or Draco would be in constant pain.

When he finally works out the formula – the potion has to be stirred with a Jobberknoll feather just before ingesting, _and the Jobberknoll has to have died of natural causes!_ – it’s with the aid of a marked-up Potions book he finds in a classroom cabinet, after ingesting the barest sip of Felix Felicis from his godfather’s private store.

He cancels his arrangement with Theo – the price is about to soar, and nothing less than 300 Galleons will buy a second of his time – but relents when Theo offers to take over his underground marketing.

Sex, survival, and selling things: the gifts of Slytherin.

Draco is happily (and, for most of sixth year, very generously) bisexual, but he’s still not quite used to being female. The sensations of absorption and extrusion are … off-putting. After a disastrous encounter that ruins his last set of silk sheets the moment he changes back, he has to insist on condoms for vaginal sex. But Theo almost always makes him come, sometimes more than once, and that part is more than all right.

His first full-price client, in the cold grey days leading up to Christmas, is Dean Thomas.

“I just want to know what it’s like,” the chiseled Gryffindor tells him. “He’s my best mate. It’s not worth losing him over something … I mean, I might not even like it. But I have to know.”

Thomas, Merlin bless him, pays double and they switch. The second time, when he’s on top, Thomas actually cries a little before he comes with a resonant moan, rubbing his lightly stubbled cheek against Draco’s.

“Now I’m proper fucked,” he says, sitting on the edge of Draco’s sex bed (formerly Blaise’s boring bed) and pulling on his clothes. He wears red silk boxers. “I can’t live without him. I have to just – man up, right, and tell him how I feel.” _Fucking Gryffindor._

“That’s grand, Thomas,” Draco says in Finnegan’s brogue. “Now quit your blether and get the feck out.”

“Thank you for this,” Thomas says, leaning in with his earnest face and his liquid dark eyes and kissing Draco’s (Finnegan’s) cheek. “I’ll recommend you.”

Draco sighs. He knows Theo is relying on word of mouth.

“Thanks … mate,” he says, and Thomas beams as he closes the door.

Draco rolls up, stretching as his body reshapes. The lid of his trunk hides a blood-warded compartment, used in the past for small Dark objects and a few of the higher-end Veela mags, and he opens it with a drop from his left index finger. He counts all of his gold again, gloating over the pile like his namesake. He’s pulled in nearly fifteen hundred Galleons, with just over six months left before graduation.

He can make this work. This is his money: not his father’s, not his mother’s. He owes it to none of the ancestors locked away in portraits and mausoleums, trapped in a mansion cankered by darkness. He’s earned it through skill and luck and cunning.

For the first time, Draco Malfoy feels rich.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This work is now completed (after an embarrassing length of time for a 21,000-word fic), and I'm opening it to guest readers. Your kudos and comments are greatly appreciated, and Brit-picking is welcome. 
> 
> All of my work is unbetaed and this is a true first fic (in any fandom). If you've been considering writing yourself, I encourage you to take the plunge -- even though completing this work was not easy, I'm so glad to have finally gone beyond reading and contributed to the HP community, which I dearly love. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!


	2. Motivation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco satisfies his first Hufflepuff client, and is surprised by a desire of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My thanks to Desert_Sea for her exceptionally kind reception.

Every Slytherin understands Hogwarts as a microcosm.

The dedicated field of Astronomy is a remnant of the school’s first and, regrettably, only centaur student. The mare Danae established the department in trade for seven years’ tuition. (At that time, Hogwarts students paid according to their means. These ranged from barrows full of gold Birlinns to cart-loads of turnips, chickens, fighting rats, and other miscellaneous goods.) After the Divination professor refused to share his subject with “an ill-favoured nagg with a bosom lyke unto two cabbages,” Danae proposed a compromise. He could keep his crystal balls, and she would take over the ancient and powerfully magical study of the cosmos.

After her students successfully predicted the Divination professor’s demise (drowned while hunting for Occamy nests in a monsoon), Danae was offered professorship of both subjects. She taught them in combination until her death in 1281, a practice that ceased due to a dearth of cooperative centaurs.

For human witches and wizards, too much magical focus on Astronomy and Divination over a period of years carried a terrible risk. Ambushing the future from multiple angles led to insanity that lingered in the bloodline. The earliest known cautionary tale dated to the fifth century, when astronomer and oracle Aquila Black jumped off a cliff, believing that his future self would, upon sensing the threat to his own existence, Apparate in (and through) time to save himself before impact with the rocks below, henceforth existing as two copies in one timeline. His parting words, reported by his house elf, were: “If this works, we’ll keep on jumping and then we’ll all see who’s crazy.”

Danae’s lasting contribution to Hogwarts, however, was sealed by her research suggesting that Astronomy boosted magical proficiency in adolescents – so long as they didn’t study too hard. This was never a problem at Hogwarts, as there were better things to do on the Astronomy Tower.

Returning to the microcosm:

Each person at Hogwarts, each celestial body, could be defined in relation to other relevant bodies. Harry Potter, let’s say, is a comet: rare yet predictable, showy, more flash than substance (except at the core); powerful but proscribed in his orbit, a threat only to any snake-faced moron who crosses his path time and again. The sun is, naturally, Hogwarts itself: a place of explosive power, ready to harness for growth or destruction. The current Headmaster is a black hole, bending those around him to his influence.

And everywhere, the melding whirl of binary stars.

Thomas and Finnegan. Flint and Wood. The Weasley twins. Vince and Greg. Dumbledore and Grindelwald (if rumor could be trusted). Snape and the Dark Lord. Snape and Potter. Granger and Potter. Weasley and Potter.

Potter and Draco.

The exchange and pull of power – sexual, magical, social – and the binding of two forces around a single centre, irresistible …

Polyjuice Potion was a cheap substitute. The genius of it, however, was the taste it offered. The barest brush against the shell’s true self.

When Draco was Granger, his magic reacted to Theo’s as though he were, in fact, Granger. It was a weak response, a spark, just enough to tempt without satisfying. But that temptation was addictive, even maddening. It felt like the embrace of your true love’s ghost.

Or so Draco imagined. He had never, of course, been in love.

But he knew power, and he understood from his mother that losing one’s paired star – or never making the connection in the first place, longing but never quite touching – was the greatest pain imaginable.

So the Polyjuice Fantasy Fuck (Theo’s name, damn it) served a dual purpose. One, pull in thousands of Galleons by understanding and exploiting soul-deep pain.

Two … maybe help assuage that pain. Just a little. For selfish reasons, of course. Empathy helps him to anticipate clients’ needs. And if seeing their gratitude makes him feel something he doesn’t quite understand, there's no call to examine it too closely.

Even if it makes him feel a little too much.

***

His second appointment is slightly disturbing.

“How do I know you won’t tell anyone?”

“This is a business transaction,” he repeats, so patiently that if he wasn’t addressing a fucking Hufflepuff, she would realize how close Draco is to Obliviating her and walking away. “I’m building up contacts. It would be the height of stupidity to spread rumors about my own clients. Confidentiality is part of the service, and I can assure you it figures into the price.”

“I would die if Neville found out,” Hannah Abbott murmurs.

“Then don’t do it,” Draco says, bored. “Save your Galleons. Spend them on dresses for tea in the garden or whatever your drab little heart desires.”

Abbott bristles, as he knew she would. “I just told you what I – desire,” she says. “And I’ve got the gold. Dean said I could trust you to – honour your part of the deal.”

By the time she’s riding him, he’s goaded her into something like a decent fuck. They’re in the Room of Requirement, on a small mattress in a rather unrealistically large cupboard under an odd-looking staircase. It seems to be Abbott’s idea of what Muggle stairs look like, which is logs with the bark still on, sort of hammered together. It’s lit with a soft, fairylike glow, eerie and sourceless.

“Tell me how I make you feel,” Abbott moans, fingertips plucking her nipples. “Tell me, Harry, please –”

“Merlin, Hannah,” Draco says in Potter’s voice. This part is difficult – what will sound appropriately gormless without spoiling the mood?

He leans up on his elbows, gazing into her longing eyes.

“When I’m inside you like this,” he murmurs, “it feels like my soul is touching yours. I don’t know how I didn’t see you all these years, Hannah Abbott.” He twists a strand of her silky hair around his (clunky, thick, annoyingly nailbitten) fingers. “You glow, and I can feel the heat of you all around me. It’s like – it’s like coming home.” He puts his mouth right to her ear. “You make me feel safe,” he whispers, and she clenches around his (clunky, thick, annoyingly lovely) cock with a drawn-out sobbing shriek of ecstasy.

The disturbing part is afterward. She wants to lie in his arms, and after she agrees to pay extra, he drinks another vial of Polyjuice. The taste of Potter makes him think of new grass in the spring, tender and green.

“Thank you,” she whispers, stroking his infuriating hair. “I’ll never have to wonder what it would have been like – not that he would ever – but I think I can be happy now.”

She settles up and leaves with a soppy, sated glance as the cupboard door closes.

Draco is trapped as Potter for another forty-five minutes.

He gets out of the ridiculous cupboard (he has no idea why she wanted a cupboard, but she entered the room first and it was definitely her creation) and sits on a sheepskin rug in front of a stone fireplace. An oval mirror is stuck to the ceiling overhead.

Unfortunately, he’s still naked.

He wonders idly whether the potion would work as intended with hair from an already-Polyjuiced body. Getting a hair of Potter’s was more difficult than he’d anticipated, not least because Potter still watches his every move.

In the end, Hannah had stolen it from the Gryffindor dorm. For any other subject, he would insist on procuring the hair (or other material) himself, but Potter’s hair is so recognizable that the risk of a mishap is unusually low. It’s quite thick, almost coarse, as far opposite to Draco’s as hair can get.

It occurs to Draco that both he and Potter have their father’s hair and their mother’s eyes. He wonders what this means, if anything, before refocusing on Potter's cock.

The mirror gives him the opportunity – the mandate, really – to give it a thorough once-over. As he’d thought in the dim light of the cupboard, it’s rather exceptional. Neither too clublike nor too reedy, well-proportioned bollocks, rich even color. Lovely crisp ridging at the head; nicely fitted foreskin; just enough vein prominence to keep things interesting. Very pleasantly dense, with that feel of lamb’s-ear velvet over wood, some hard exotic wood, Brazilian teak or mahogany ...

And before he knows it he is wanking to Harry Potter, as Harry Potter, watching his green eyes narrow in pleasure so intense it looks like suffering before coming too fast and much too hard (all over the sheepskin rug) to mistake this for anything other than desperate want.


	3. Continuation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco learns something about Hufflepuffs, and PFF starts getting off the ground.

Hannah Abbott fucking played him.

A dull week passes after her PFF. No one contacts Theo, from Hufflepuff or any other house. Draco can’t put the whole wanking-to-Potter debacle out of his mind, even though he only sees Potter in two classes and has switched his seat at mealtimes. Now he faces away, and tries to pretend he can’t feel Potter’s stupidly green eyes boring into his back as he eats.

Here’s the theory he likes best: Potter is – much as Draco hates to admit it, even inside his own head – very magically powerful. So much so that even the faintest shadow of his aura, conjured up via Polyjuice, overwhelmed Draco’s natural revulsion and resistance to shagging (or wanking) a natural enemy. Thursday night sees him lying in bed, debating whether he shouldn’t just drop the whole scheme, when Theo slams into the dorm.

“I just ran into a pack of Hufflepuffs baying for your – well, not blood, but close enough for Polyjuice,” he announces. “They all want PFFs. I’ve got a date with Bones, and she’s friends with Abbott, so I’ll find out what’s brought this on.”

“You’ve ended it with Brown?”

“Don’t need her anymore.” Theo grins, looking not at all ashamed. “I finally managed to steal Granger’s hairbrush.”

***

Theo’s date with Susan Bones goes well (inexplicably, Draco thinks, but maybe Bones isn’t looking for much in the romance department), and over Sunday breakfast, he’s delighted to beat Draco over the head with the fact that Abbott set him up to fail.

“Her fantasy was a trap,” he says, throwing an admiring glance at the Hufflepuff table. “You can't resist any chance to humiliate Potter or Longbottom. If you could refrain from spreading it about that you fucked Abbott in Potter's body – this is the Hufflepuff reasoning, not mine – then you could be trusted to keep your mouth shut about all of their undoubtedly fascinating deviancies. Why didn’t you at least tell me about the sex cupboard?”

“I’m sorry,” Draco says coldly. “Whose idea was this?”

“They had a House meeting,” Theo says, smirking. “PFF interest among the Badgers is quite high, but you know how cautious they are. So they decided to send up a – test balloon? Trial balloon? Some Muggle thing, Susan said. You passed and now they’re lining up to make their darkest dreams come true. Expect lots of amateur bondage and kinky cuddles.”

Draco thinks of his bank vault and gives a resigned nod. “Raise my rates, then. Add a premium for Hufflepuffs.”

“Done,” Theo says. “On one condition. Susan Bones is off-limits. No PFFs for her, no PFFs as her, no hair kept in reserve.”

He tries not to show his surprise. “And the Granger arrangement …”

Theo shakes his head. “I’m enjoying Susan’s company. She's surprisingly witty. But I’m keeping the hairbrush,” he adds. “We can use it. We need sources for a few other PFF subjects as well. It will require some gold upfront.”

“I can spare a few hundred. Who do you have in mind?"

“Potter's the obvious choice," Theo says. “Quidditch stars, if we can get any - that's where the gold comes in. Maybe Veela, if their hair works in the potion.”

“It doesn’t.”

“That’s a shame.”

“How about professors?” Draco asks.

Theo gags and sets down his fork. “Like who? McGonagall? Flitwick?”

“Someone might go for Snape.” He avoids looking at the Head Table. 

“And I’m done,” Theo says, shoving his plate away.

“How about students?”

Theo considers. “Recent graduates, let’s not forget them. Heroes especially.” His eyes widen. “Isn’t your cousin a Metamorphmagus?”

“The ability doesn’t cross through Polyjuice.” Draco has to laugh. “That would be far too easy.”

“Too bad. How about an anonymous survey? We could gauge demand and advertise all at once.”

Draco blinks. “Now there’s an idea.”

***

They write the survey in five minutes, and Theo spends several days applying charms to parchment. The holidays have started, but as both Draco and Theo are staying at Hogwarts, they hardly notice when most of the castle empties out.

The survey has only two questions.

The first question is: “Please state your age and current House.” Underage clients and non-students sprout a light growth of fur on their hands, most of which is burned off when the parchment auto-Incendios.

Each parchment is Charmed – and Theo is insufferably proud of this – to compile all responses to the second question (“If given the chance, via Polyjuice, whom would you most wish to shag?”) and create a master list, including a running tally for all surveys combined. A Protean Charm updates the master list on Draco and Theo’s copies. The surveys vanish once completed, reappearing on Vince's old bed.

“Shouldn’t we specify no Veela?” Draco asks, frowning at his parchment. “Or – I don’t know, vampires, merpeople, other magical creatures?”

“You think anyone in this castle wanks off to merpeople?”

“Someone wanks off to everything,” Draco counters, and Theo can’t deny this.

“It might be interesting to leave it open,” he says. They’re sitting on the floor in the Slytherin dorms, backs against Vince's bed, the stones beneath them made comfortable with Warming and Cushioning charms. Greg walked in once and promptly walked back out. “Probably we’ll get a couple of smart-arses asking for the Giant Squid, or a house elf, or Hagrid dressed up like the Giant Squid. But if we get a lot of requests for some creature, maybe we can figure out a glamour.”

When Draco raises an eyebrow, Theo adds: “The price would be commensurate with the experience, naturally. And that’s a long way off.”

“I’m not planning to launch a career, Theo,” Draco says. “I want to work out any problems with my Polyjuice, make some quick gold, and shag anyone I want. Period.”

“You wanted to shag me and Hannah Abbott?”

Draco rolls his eyes. “It worked out, didn’t it? I’m building a reputation. I’m trustworthy now, Theo. Ask all of Hufflepuff.”

***

At holidays’ end, PFF surveys are waiting on every bed in the sixth and seventh-year dorms. Theo pulls it off by enlisting the House Elves, but won’t tell Draco how to bribe them, just says smugly that he'll never figure it out.

Immediately after curfew, their results start pouring in.

Harry Potter is by far the top PFF for all respondents, male and female. Fully half of the fifty surveys completed list The Boy Who Lived to Decapitate the Dark Lord as their top choice.

Draco isn’t surprised by this, but he is a little dismayed at how his body responds to the idea of playing Potter again. (That thrice-damned magical aura.) His mind responds far more strongly to the idea of how much gold he’ll rake in, tempered by some concern over how to secure a supply of the Chosen One’s hair, seeing as he doesn’t seem to own a brush.

Granger is first runner-up for male respondents. Draco doesn’t see the appeal, but he enjoys driving her body. He’s pretty used to it by now, even a little fond, the way he feels on a reliable broomstick.

Much to Draco and Theo’s disgust, various Weasleys place high on both lists.

“I’ve never met Bill Weasley,” Theo says. “Does he really look like, and I’m quoting here, ‘sex on a stick’?”

“He’s married to Fleur Delacour.”

“I see,” Theo murmurs. “I’ll think on the logistics.”

“The girl will be easy,” Draco says. “She sheds like a Kneazle. It’s quite disgusting, really. She may have mange.”

“I think we’ll start in the classrooms,” Theo said. “Defense Against the Dark Arts looks promising. Lots of getting up and moving about, chairs instead of stools or benches.”

“What does that matter?”

“Long hair gets caught in chairs,” Theo says pragmatically. “Wraps around loose nails, that sort of thing. Susan told me.”

“So that covers the Patil twins.” Padma and Parvati are tied for third among male respondents.

“We’ll have to stipulate only one twin at a time,” Theo says. “Unless you take on a partner.”

Draco shakes his head. “I could use a Time Turner,” he muses. “If we see enough profit, I’ll import one.”

Theo rocks back on his heels. “What kind of schedule do you have in mind?”

“If I can’t make two thousand Galleons a week,” Draco says, “it’s not worth doing.”

“You’re really all right with all this?”

Draco smirks. “Sixth year,” he says. “I’m switching bodies and getting paid. That’s really the only difference.”

“You’re going to make a fortune,” Theo tells him.

***

His next Polyjuice Fantasy Fuck is with a Ravenclaw. She is also under Polyjuice, the inferior formula that doesn’t change her voice.

She is, per her PFF contract, Polyjuiced as Harry fucking Potter.

“This is going to be so hot,” says Padma Patil. She’s turned the Room of Requirement into a near copy of the Prefects’ bathroom. The only difference is the mirrored walls.

“Sure,” Draco says in Granger’s voice. As requested in Patil’s contract, he is naked except for a fluffy pink bathrobe. Granger’s hair is up, with tendrils starting to frizz around his (her) face, and her nails are clipped short. (Her contract doesn’t mention prostate play, and he opted not to suggest it, but it’s best to be prepared.)

“Are you ready to start?”

“You get in first,” Patil says. “I’ll come in again. Pretend to be surprised.”

By the end of the scenario – Potter barges in, muscles bulging and sweaty from Quidditch practice, slips into the bath, seduces Granger, pretty straightforward – Patil is penetrating him and gasping with every thrust.

“Oh – my – gods – this is so – tight – Hermione, yes, oh my gods!”

She comes helplessly, shuddering, and Draco is facing away, gripping the edge of the tub and scraping up Granger’s knees against the side, and he looks into a mirror and sees Potter’s face contorted in ecstasy, his right arm under Granger’s breasts, hugging her against his chest. And Patil, still moaning, reaches down and strokes his (Granger’s) clit under the warm jasmine-scented water, and Draco feels the calluses on Potter’s hand against the sensitive skin of his (Granger’s) stomach, and he comes so hard Patil cries out as his muscles clench around her (Potter’s) softening cock.

“That was incredible,” Patil says as she towels off. Her body is starting to change back, Potter’s eyes starry against her darkening skin, his hair growing out and self-taming. “Worth every Knut. Malfoy, I hate to say it, but you’re a genius.”

Her glowing review brings in Anthony Goldstein (Granger again), Terry Boot (Blaise Zabini – Draco manages this by casting “Accio Zabini’s hair” in the dorm, with mildly disturbing results), and finally her own twin. Parvati, of course, wants Potter.

Halfway through a dull missionary on a heart-shaped bed, she hauls off and slaps him across the face.

“What the fuck was that for?” Draco demands, rearing up and almost sliding off the red silk sheets.

“Treating me like garbage at the Yule Ball,” Parvati snaps. “Now shut up and fuck me, Harry.”

He flips her over, making her flail and squeal, and fucks her into the mattress. Going by her frenzied affirmation as he yanks on her hair like a horse’s mane, the ending is far more satisfactory than the start.

This time, just as she leaves, he starts changing back. When he wishes for a mirror on the wall, the Room obliges.

Draco stands, still naked, to watch Potter fade into himself. For some reason, the eyes change first: green into grey with his hair still dark, and then the hair goes platinum and smooth. His body slims down. That first time, after Abbott, he was gratified to notice that his cock remains the same length, although he does lose girth.

"Fucking Potter," he mutters, and then there's only Malfoy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a first fic, and any interest is highly encouraging. Thank you for your review, and again, please feel free to suggest PFF scenarios!


	4. Misidentification

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trapped in the wrong body, Draco encounters his nemesis.

Things go pear-shaped on Valentine’s Day.

The 14th falls on a Saturday. Four days prior, Septima Vector keeps Theo after class to request a PFF with Bill Weasley. Theo, now working for a hard-won twenty percent, negotiates their first thousand-Galleon contract. The price includes three hours of Draco’s time and a binding silence for him and Theo.

“The only eligible male in this pile is Severus,” Vector tells them. “I’ll be damned if I spend another Valentine’s grooming my Kneazle.”

Draco later learns that she means this quite literally. Vector owns a purebred Kneazle bitch (whose name, Scalar, sounds nicely draconic), but Draco never has the privilege of meeting her.

Instead, he finds himself stuck in a body he doesn’t recognize, but he's willing to lay steep odds that it belongs to a Weasley. Just not the right one.

This one is covered in scars – especially his forearms, the copper hair crosshatched by silvery trails – and built like a bull. The sheer physical power, the bulk of muscle at chest and shoulder, makes a nice change.

But it won’t wring a single Galleon from Vector, and it means the Weasley twins have cheated Theo. Two hundred in gold, for eight strands of the wrong Weasel’s hair.

Draco blames himself. He'd forgotten about the Quidditch brawl in fifth year, and keeping track of grudges is a Slytherin watchword.

Vector was supposed to meet him by the Room of Requirement, but instead Draco in Random Weasley’s body is slouched in front of the ballet-troll tapestry, hoping she doesn’t run or else start casting at the sight of him. There’s a slim chance she’ll be willing to consider a substitute – discounted, of course – but he’s not counting on it.

He straightens when Vector appears. She speeds up, hand twitching toward her wand, and then abruptly veers away. Her heels click down the hall as Draco turns and sees Harry F. Potter.

“Charlie!” he calls, spreading his arms as if to block Draco/Charlie’s escape. “What are you doing here?”

There’s an intense light in his eyes, a shining openness that Draco has never seen on Potter’s face, and the unfamiliar body reacts. It appears that Charlie Weasley has nothing to be ashamed of.

“I’m just here for a visit,” he tries to say, but Weasley’s body stalls.

This is a well-known flaw of Polyjuice (at least among students able to comprehend the Potions text, meaning himself, Theo, Granger, and most of Ravenclaw). Unfamiliar forms can stick or spasm, most often at the joints or soft mobile parts like the eyes and tongue. The false Moody, may he rot in soulless oblivion, had a tell that Draco still kicks himself for overlooking.

Charlie Weasley’s form is sticking at the jaw. When Draco attempts to speak, he hears: “Mmmnneerrfrriiiuhtt.”

Potter’s eyes widen. His glasses are off for some reason, likely a Valentine’s date, and those eyes are not emeralds; they’re dragon’s eyes, deep forest pools, seawater in a drowning dream.

“You need help,” he says. “Here, come with me –”

Before Draco can resist, he’s dragged into the Room of Requirement.

Potter stops suddenly, and Draco bangs into him. This fails to dislodge his jaw.

“Sorry, Charlie,” Potter says with a laugh. “I guess you know where my mind went.”

The firelit room is dominated by a four-poster bed large enough to fit several giants. The sheets and counterpane match Potter’s eyes, doing nothing to quell Draco/Charlie’s erection.

“Here, just sit for a moment,” Potter says, settling with him on the bed as if he’s done so before. Draco tells himself the sudden crushing pain isn’t jealousy, and he’s right.

“Oh, shit,” Potter says. “Are you okay?”

His miserable excuse for a body just spasmed at the right elbow, hitting itself in the throat. When his larynx recovers, Draco opens his (Charlie's) mouth and curses so vehemently he’s surprised the canopy doesn’t ignite.

“That’s better,” Potter says. He doesn’t laugh again, but he’s smiling. “Everything's okay? Nothing wrong on the reserve?”

“No,” Draco replies. He remembers the Triwizard Tournament and abruptly recalls what this Weasley does for a living. “Dragons are all fine. Flying and breathing fire and all … that.”

“Molly and Arthur are well?”

He nods. Charlie has a shorter neck than he’s used to, and the gesture feels odd.

“Nothing to worry about,” he says, trying a smile. “Just … missed the old place.”

His thoughts are whirring, searching for an excuse to leave the castle without seeing his younger siblings or, Merlin forbid, Dumbledore, when Potter leans toward him.

“You don’t have to pretend,” he murmurs. “I missed you, too.”

Draco swallows uncomfortably. “You – really?”

“Of course,” Potter repeats. His eyes are, if possible, even more shining and limpid. “I don’t think anyone could have what we had and just – stop feeling. And I think we made the right choice, Charlie, and I don’t want to get back together – but yes, of course I missed you. Of course I want you. No shame in that.”

“Oh,” Draco says, brilliantly.

“So what do you say we catch up? It’s Valentine’s Day, and I’ve nowhere to be. Unless you’re seeing someone?”

Draco shakes his head, feeling like a large, dumb animal. Taurus, perhaps.

“We have this bed,” Potter murmurs, leaning toward him. Draco holds his breath as Potter's lips just touch his (Charlie's) ear, making him shiver. He feels Potter's mouth curve. “What do you say?”

He would say yes, of course he would, but he’s afraid Weasley’s body will lock up again, likely at the worst possible moment, and although Draco has three more vials of Polyjuice, he can’t excuse himself every hour. He has thirty minutes left on this vial, a realization that calls up a memory of Potter standing over the Dark Lord’s body, that garish sword scattering blood over the grass.

“I’m not feeling my best right now, Harry,” Draco says. “I’d love to, another time.”

Potter sits back, leaning on his elbows, and gives Draco an opaque look. There’s disappointment, but also a gleam of – amusement? Mischief?

Draco feels suddenly exposed.

“I should have said,” he begins, smiling apologetically, “but I think I’m coming down with Dragon Pox. Lockjaw is one of the symptoms. It spreads through saliva, so you should be safe, but I have to go right now. I’m really sorry.”

“I can tell you are,” Harry says softly. He reaches up, brushing Draco’s (Charlie’s) hair behind his ear. “It’s all right. Another time, yeah?”

Draco nods, relieved.

“You should get to St Mungo’s,” Harry continues. He slides off the bed and holds out a hand for Draco, pulling him up easily. For an instant he stands so close Draco can smell him, a blend of green applewood and some bright spice. His hand is warm and dry, its familiar calluses lightly scratching Draco’s palm.

“Especially if your booster is failing,” Potter says, letting go. “You always told Molly you couldn’t get Pox if you tried."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting a day late and a bit short due to a sick child, but I hope seeing Harry makes up for it. The idea of a Polyjuiced body "stalling" belongs to Desert_Sea, and is an important plot point in "An Hour of Snape." The idea that film-version Moody's spastic tongue is a Polyjuice side-effect and not enthusiastic acting is my own.


	5. Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco and Harry are brought together by a potion. (No, not that one.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your kudos, bookmarks and comments. Every one is a thrill and an inspiration. 
> 
> Just a quick reminder that this story is AU (non-canon after fifth year) of Draco et al.'s seventh year. There will be no underage sexual activity, no matter how many Galleons that fourth-year sneaks from his/her family vault. Just fun consensual slash and het, with an arc toward H/D at the end of the school year. This WIP seems to break up naturally into short chapters (1,200-1,400 words or so), and I post once or twice a week.

Instead of panicking over Potter, Draco throws himself into his work.

An unfortunate side effect of spending so much time as Granger, most of it nude, is that he can’t help watching her – studying her facial expressions, the way she moves her hands, the aggressive set of her shoulders. Sometimes he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it until she twitches, glares in his direction, and sweeps off in a haze of frizzy hair and sloppy robes.

He really doesn’t see the appeal.

Three clients in a row want Potter, and Draco counts and recounts his Galleons after each encounter. He spends no more time than necessary under Polyjuice and looks in no reflective surfaces. He’s started to play Potter as a selfish lover, dominant and demanding, but no one complains.

February tips into March, dumping heavy snow all over Scotland. The castle starts to take on the feel of a pressure cooker. A fourth-year offers enough gold to make him reconsider his moral scruples, but ultimately he’s sick of playing Potter and turns down the contract. When Theo makes a bit of noise, Draco kindly suggests that he shove it up his arse.

Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas, sickeningly in love, pool their resources to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in the Room of Requirement with Madam Rosmerta, the ubiquitous four-poster bed, and green linen ties Transfigured into docile, highly flexible snakes. Draco, in Rosmerta’s lush and bountiful body, rides Finnegan while Thomas brings him (her) off twice with his talented fingers. Rosmerta has a burnt-sugar contralto, and Draco pitches his (her) moans so Finnegan can feel the vibration all the way up his dick.

The Irishman sucks off his boyfriend in turn, doing a first-rate job of it if Draco is any judge, releasing him with a succulent pop to spurt all over Rosmerta’s heaving bosom … which Finnegan then licks clean, straining against his ties, before reaching his own peak with a stream of awestruck profanity. It’s Draco’s favorite PFF to date, and he seriously considers offering them a second encounter at a discount.

There are worse ways to break up the monotony of early spring.

***

Potter, ever the masochist, is taking Advanced Potions along with Granger, Theo, Draco, Boot, Goldstein and Bones. He always partners Granger, and of course Draco sticks with Theo.

But on the Friday after St. Patrick’s, Granger is absent for the first time since fifth year. Draco picks the worst possible day to oversleep, and when he rushes in, his partner has abandoned their table.

Theo deigns to nod apologetically – Bones is sitting so close they’re practically spliced – and turns away before Draco can snarl at him properly.

“Mr. Malfoy,” Snape says. “How kind of you to carve out a space in your ... busy schedule ... to attend my class.”

Draco shoves Potter’s kit aside and takes his seat.

“As I was saying” – the Potions Master gestures at the board, revealing the day’s lesson – “the Diplomat’s Draught is only reasonably difficult to brew, but the final ingredient can, if added even the barest instant before the final ripple subsides, lead to an inversion of the desired effect –”

The final ingredient is ground Jarvey toenail. Forgeting it’s not Theo beside him, Draco mutters: “So instead of flattering the Minister, you tell him to take a flying fuck at a rolling Puffskein?”

Potter snorts, loudly, and Snape’s voice cuts off.

“Your scholarship inspires us all, Mr. Potter,” he says. “I have here a perfectly brewed example of the Diplomat’s Draught, as well as its antithesis.”

Everyone turns to stare at their table, and Draco’s eyes widen.

“Mr. Malfoy will demonstrate the effects of the improperly prepared draught.”

There’s no choice, not if he wants continued access to Severus’ potions cabinet. He stands to accept a small vial of nauseatingly yellow-green potion.

“Eye contact with the subject is ideal, but a strong visualization will work in most cases,” Snape says.

Draco turns, meeting Potter’s eyes, and drinks the potion. It tastes like Jarvey toenails.

“Unlike the properly prepared draught,” Snape says, “the misbrewed version will compel the imbiber to speak. Any pre-existing feelings toward the subject are magnified, though a modicum of control can be retained by—”

“Cor, Potter,” Draco hears himself say. “Do you wake up like that or run out and soak your head in the lake before breakfast?”

“—focusing on physical appearance, for example, and using a form of Occlumency to block whatever subject you most wish to avoid,” Snape finishes. “Such as, oh, Mr. Potter’s sex life.” He sits back, dark eyes gleaming.

“Half the school wants to shag you, Potter,” Draco says helplessly. “And the other half wants to fuck Granger, or the pair of you together, but no one here’s actually had you, or if they have they’re not talking, so you must be quite forgettable, or else no one wants you enough to put in any effort –”

Potter bursts out laughing.

This has a stunning effect on Draco, or perhaps on the potion. He senses his mouth hanging open but can’t seem to rearrange his face into something more neutral.

“No one puts in any effort,” Potter says. “Right. I have to redirect my post to a containment area and pay a team of Cursebreakers to take off all the compulsion and love spells. I can’t walk down the hall without getting propositioned, let alone Diagon Alley. None of it’s real, Malfoy, and none of it matters. You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”

“I want –” Draco chokes it back, focusing desperately. “I want to burn all your clothes, Potter, especially those hideous socks.”

“A friend made them for me,” Potter says, unfazed.

“I want to suck – your – blood,” Draco chokes.

“… Okay, that was a bit weird.”

“I want your –”

Potter, damn him, raises his eyebrows. “You want my what?”

“Wand!” He feels the potion’s compulsion lessen slightly. “You took mine once, if you remember. I want yours.”

“I gave it back,” Potter points out. “And it was for class, Malfoy. Four months ago.”

“Just one chance to disarm you,” Draco whispers. “That’s all I want.”

“Ask me again in Defence,” Potter says, as if this is a perfectly reasonable turn of conversation, and the compulsion breaks.

Draco sits, panting. The effort to twist his compelled speech paid off – for the most part – but he still can’t look Potter in the face.

“As we see,” Snape says, “the potion forces the most awkward, insulting, or personally revealing information to the surface. Mr. Potter will now demonstrate the properly brewed draught. Again, consider the effect of a single slight misstep in the brewing process.”

Potter accepts the second vial. This version is a pretty leaf-green.

He meets Draco’s eyes and drinks. The movement of his throat as he swallows should be outlawed.

“Malfoy,” Potter says. His voice is supremely confident, just shy of arrogant; he is standing straighter, and his eyes have not left Draco’s. “How do you like seventh year?”

“Fine, Potter,” he replies warily.

“I’m glad to hear it.” His voice is different, too: warm and genuine, so attentive it makes Draco squirm. It feels as though he’s caught in a beam of sunlight.

“I heard Professor Snape telling McGonagall you’ve the best creative talent for Potions he’s seen in a decade,” Potter says, and Severus scowls.

“That’s … very flattering,” Draco mutters.

Potter smiles, and the sunlight burns. “But not surprising. You’re different this year, Malfoy. Stronger, I think. I admire your courage.”

He doesn’t say why – perhaps that wouldn’t be tactful – but Draco is taken aback by his sincerity. Knowing it's potion-induced doesn't stop the yearning toward Potter, the consuming desire for this to be real ...

Then Potter holds out his hand.

“As the scion of one house to another,” he says, “I hope we can move past our enmity.”

The formal language must be inspired by the potion. There’s no way Potter would know the pureblood script for ending a feud. But somehow, it seems not to matter.

“I accept your friendship and bury the past,” he replies, and clasps Potter’s hand. Those eyes seem to spark, and if Draco wasn’t lost before, he’s deep in the Forbidden Forest now.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bondage snakes are used to great effect in Desert_Sea's "Tango." (Mine are less "sexy danger snakes" and more "cheery sock-puppet snakes," but each fits a certain atmosphere.) Thank you again for your encouragement, Desert_Sea, and especially for Draco's inspiring innovation.


	6. Demonstration

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco and Harry duel, and someone is disarmed.

Draco waits until the first week of April to challenge Potter.

His cousin, Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin, is teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts this year. (Snape makes a rather childish habit of billow-stalking past DADA lessons, which often make use of the castle grounds. Once, following a particularly petulant stalk, Draco happened to glance up and see Tonks morph into a nightmarish smiling Snape, complete with button nose and Lockhart teeth. When she gave him a princess wave, Draco laughed so hard his ribs ached – giving Potter, the cheat, his one chance to Disarm him outright.)

With his mother incapacitated, Draco no longer feels as though he’s betraying her by acknowledging the sane patch on the Black tapestry. Tonks may never be a friend, but there’s a kind of … cordiality. After seeing the Manor overturned in blood, the desertion of his father, and the gutting of his inheritance, Draco sees no harm in forming new alliances. And Tonks is oddly endearing.

The fact that she’s friendly with Potter is, as the Muggleborns say, a cherry on top.

Draco is able to convince her that an exhibition duel between himself and Potter would be a good learning experience for the class. She lets him sweat for a few days before agreeing, which is rather un-Hufflepuff-like.

Then again, Draco has found himself forced to revisit his opinion of that House. Since Abbott’s little stunt, he’s handled three ’Puff PFFs that were so depraved, he and Theo had to make repeated visits to the Scarlet Shelf in the Restricted Section just to look up some of the terms used in each proposed contract. The most recent Hufflepuff Fantasy Fuck involved six Badgers, a flock of Transfigured Snidgets, and so much whipped cream the Room of Requirement still smells faintly of aging dairy. Draco had been contracted to play Dumbledore – his role limited to that of a jovial, slightly perverse Master of Ceremonies, thank Merlin – but some of the things he saw still haunt him to this day.

“Scared, Malfoy?” Potter asks him in a low voice, brushing by in the hallway before class.

“You wish,” Draco says, lips curving before he can flatten them. Potter laughs delightedly.

“You’re a far better sport than you used to be.”

There’s really nothing Draco can say to that. Deploring his shiver at the timbre of Potter’s voice (what alchemy turns scrawny to sultry, seemingly overnight?), he follows his nemesis into DADA.

Tonks, standing on a rocky outcropping at the head of the class, beams down upon them all.

“As you can see,” she calls, echoing faintly, “Professor McGonagall has kindly helped me redecorate for the occasion.”

The room has been greatly enlarged. Between the doorway and Tonks’ perch are perhaps twenty boulders of varying sizes and shapes. Small cactuses, odd little green trees and spiky yellow flowers stipple the landscape. As Draco steps forward, there’s a rattling sound that sends quite a different shiver up his spine.

“Don’t worry, they’re not poisonous,” Tonks says cheerfully. “Just a little conjuration to keep you on your toes.”

“Do they bite?” Granger asks.

“Oh yes,” Tonks replies. “Now, what’s an exhibition duel without our duelists?”

Potter steps up with a wave.

“And I can see Dra – Malfoy from here.” She winks. “That hair is a liability, Malfoy. In a real duel, you might want to use a glamour.” She demonstrates, shading her own hair into a patchwork of brown and beige.

“Desert camouflage,” mutters Granger, the know-it-all.

“The rest of the class will join me to observe,” Tonks says. “Just use the stairs.”

The stairs lead up to what appears to be a bridge made of rope and wooden planks. After the rest of the class has reached the outcropping – Granger tearing herself away after hissing last-second advice in Potter’s ear – the whole rig vanishes. (Disillusioned, Draco imagines.) The sense of an isolated duel in the desert is complete, and only very slightly unnerving.

“On my spark,” Tonks announces, raising her wand, “both combatants will have twenty seconds to find cover. At that point, any non-fatal spell, excepting only Unforgivables, is fair game. The viewing area is shielded, as is the door, so have at it, gentlemen.”

Draco turns to Potter, intending to bow in a reserved and manly way.

Potter winks at him.

“Two gentlemen enter,” he murmurs. “One gentleman leaves.”

“What are you on about?”

Potter grins as Tonks raises her wand. “Welcome to Thunderdome, Malfoy.”

 

***

 

Draco scrambles among several boulders, gasping for air. Sandstone dust grits in his mouth, and he wishes he had time for a quick  _Aguamenti_. There’s a sluggishly bleeding scrape running the length of one shin, and his dueling robes are torn. He casts a quick _Episkey_ on his left ankle before testing his weight.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Potter sings. The rest of the class is deathly quiet.

A rattle sounds somewhere near his healed ankle. Draco flings himself up, bracing one arm against the boulder.

Fangs click as the strike misses. He’s able to break the snake's back with both heels, sending the conjuration up in smoke. Unfortunately, his clumsy leap has betrayed his hiding place.

“ _Crispus!_ ” Potter calls, rebounding the beam off a nearby rock face. Draco’s hair snaps into curls, obscuring his vision. A prickling sensation informs him that all the hair on his body has curled as well.

“That's a first-year spell, Potter!” he spits, furious.

A simple _Finite_ straightens everything out. Face burning, he ducks a jet of red light and rolls to the side. There’s a rough tunnel through one of the rocks, just large enough for a man of slender build to slither through.

Running on Silenced feet, he catches Potter just as he rounds the boulder where Draco was hiding.

The Golden Boy’s broad back is to him, utterly defenceless.

Draco flips through a catalogue of minor hexes – _teeth-growing/eyelid inverting/lip-sealing/fingernail-curling_ – and then shakes his head. How old is he, twelve?

 _Expelliarmus!_ he casts nonverbally, and Potter’s wand flies back over his head.

“ _Accio wand,_ ” Potter says lazily, and it reverses course.

Instead of sputtering – he can almost hear the Draco of two years ago, screaming _Not fair!_ – he follows up with a spell of his own invention.

“ _Flagellum!”_

The lash, ink-black and supple as a snake, flies out and wraps around the length of holly. Draco yanks his wand, retracting the whip, and Potter’s wand is in his hand before anyone really knows what happened.

There's the silence of a desert at noon.

Potter looks straight at Draco (that green against sandstone, dear Merlin) and gives him a smile. A genuine smile. With dimples.

Tonks stands, bringing her hands up, and suddenly the rest of the class is roaring.

“Holy shit! Beg your pardon, Professor –”

“Was that a bullwhip? Like that Muggle bloke, the one Professor Burbage makes us watch every sodding –”

“Did _Malfoy_ just disarm _Potter?_ ”

“It’s _Indiana_ Jones, Seamus, not India –”

“That was so … wicked!”

“Nicely done, Malfoy,” Potter says. He’s standing quite a bit closer.

“Thanks,” Draco says, and blames the break in his voice on sand.

Potter glances down the length of his body, and Draco has a moment of euphoric confusion before realizing what he must want.

He presents the holly wand over his arm, handle first. When Potter takes it back, the tip sparks green.

“Well fought, Potter,” Draco murmurs.

“Well won, Malfoy.”

As the stairs reappear and their classmates start across the bridge, Granger practically swinging like a demiguise, Draco tries to catch Potter's gaze. He narrows his eyes slightly, emphasizing the length of his pale lashes.

But the effort is wasted. Potter’s not even looking at him. Instead, he’s eying Draco’s wand, held loosely in his left hand.

“What?” Draco snaps. This is his moment of triumph, gods damn it, and Potter should be looking at him, not his bloody wand.

“You’ll see,” Potter says. “Let me know when you’ve figured it out.”

At last he’s looking up at Draco, those black-lashed eyes narrowed just so … and then he winks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few small references to various works scattered throughout. (More subtle than Thunderdome.) Well after writing and posting this chapter, I reread Anubis Ankh's "Pride of Time" (I highly recommend both this fic and its alternate ending, "Divide of Time") and found the Indiana Jones bullwhip spell, used in Hermione and Severus's duel. I wasn't consciously thinking of this scene, but would like to credit the idea anyway. 
> 
> Drarry is creeping up on me a bit sooner than planned. I have a few more specific PFFs in mind and will take a chapter or two with greater emphasis on those, so we'll have a little more fluff and smut before the main pairing comes back into focus. I'm estimating four or five more chapters total, but staying flexible. 
> 
> I welcome all your comments and suggestions, and thank you for reading!


	7. Assignation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco meets with two Gryffindors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's a rare (het) pair in this one. I enjoyed writing it, and hope you enjoy reading. If you're here for the Drarry, please stick around for the next few chapters!
> 
> I'm also working on a Snape one-shot (Snily, mild angst and definite crack/fluff) that I hope to post on Sunday.

Draco decides to avoid Potter for a week or two. He sits as far away as possible in their shared classes, and doesn’t glare in his direction once at the Ravenclaw-Hufflepuff match on Saturday.

This restraint is sorely tested. Potter shows up at the match wearing a gigantic eagle-shaped hat that lets out a piercing shriek whenever Ravenclaw scores a goal. The first time it goes off, Draco’s heart almost leaps out of his chest. The last time he heard a sound like that was in the Manor ballroom, when the Dark Lord fed Nagini.

Theo sets up contracts for two PFFs in the middle of Draco’s Avoiding Potter campaign. Both are well-paying – he can fairly call himself rich, at least by student standards – but there all similarities end.

One client is a sixth-year; the other is a professor.

One encounter leaves Draco even more confused. The other is a bit sad and, although he would deny it to his dying day, intensely sweet.

Sunday evening finds him by the Room of Requirement, waiting for Ginny Weasley. She paid extra to buy an hour without naming her PFF in the contract itself, contingent on her providing the appropriate hair. (Draco has worked out a simple process for confirming the identity of any hair before adding it to the potion: Summoning it in that person’s name. If “Accio Hermione Granger’s hair!” fails to work on a given hair from Granger’s brush, for instance, it likely belongs to one of her roommates or even her wretched familiar. Draco has no desire to wind up half-Kneazle, and ginger to boot.)

So, for a sum of Galleons most of her family will never see all in one place, Ginny Weasley appears, drags him into the Room of Requirement (where, yawn, a four-poster bed awaits them), waves a dark hair in his face and demands Sirius Black.

“I can’t do that,” Draco says patiently. “He’s been dead longer than one full moon cycle. The magic is too degraded for Polyjuice.”

Her pale Weasley face is balked and furious. He enjoys the sight for a moment, then says: “I can’t give you a refund, but I have a wide range of options to choose from.”

She snorts inelegantly. “Like, in your pocket?”

“Where else would I keep them?” He takes out his PFF travel kit, a small set of _Imperviused_ crystal vials clearly labeled with code names.

She crowds him, reading over his shoulder. The sensation is surprisingly pleasant; her body is long and lean, rounded at the chest and hip. He feels oddly calm in her presence, and for the first time begins to understand what Potter saw (sees?) in her.

“Chattery Tits,” Ginny reads. “Is that … a person?”

“Just a nickname.”

“Barmaid Bliss – well, that one’s easy,” she says. “Has to be Rosmerta.”

“Aren’t you clever.”

She rolls her eyes. “Italian Stallion, must be Zabini … I wouldn’t push him out of bed … Fresh Pickled Toad – oh, very cheeky.” She grabs the vial before he can protest. “These are all Harry’s? Goodness, where did you find them all?”

Draco smirks. “That would be telling.”

“Do many people ask for him?”

He leans over – her hair, too, smells rather nice, like cloves – and whispers in her ear: “Everyone.”

She laughs, ducking her head. “Everyone?”

“Seems like,” he says. “Him and Granger.”

“That’s right. Harry told me about Potions class.” She regards him for a moment. “Who would you choose?”

No one’s asked him this before. “Potter,” he says immediately. “Just to see what all the fuss is about.”

“But you’ve already had Potter,” she points out.

He narrows his eyes. “How do you know about that?”

“From Parvati, of course,” Weasley shoots back. “But I guess you weren’t – yourself.” She blushes faintly. “For what it’s worth, I know Harry doesn’t think about Hermione that way. Ron might, but he’s always at the shop, so …”

Under the terms of a standard contract, he reminds himself, everything said in the Room is confidential.

“I know he doesn’t,” Draco says. “Harry, I mean. I know about Charlie.”

Ginny looks amused. “You and everyone else. It was all over the _Prophet_ this summer.”

“I was otherwise engaged.” He can’t help the bite in his voice.

“Ah,” she says. “I’m sorry. Of course you were.” A long pause. “Does anyone just want you?”

The question catches him by surprise. “Not really, no. No surprise there.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because I’m nobody,” he says. The chance to speak plainly feels a bit like coming up for air. “I’m not a war hero. I stayed alive by keeping well out of the Dark Lord’s way. During the battle, I hid with my mother in a warded tower. I’m not even top of my class.” He smiles, strangely unselfconscious. It feels reassuring, somehow, sitting close to Ginny – to Weasley. He really can see why Potter likes her. Speaking of which ...

“Is he – Potter, I mean to say, does he still like –”

“He just likes guys now,” Ginny says, grinning. “Especially blonds.”

Draco colours. “How nice for him.”

“You’ve deflated your head a bit,” she murmurs. He’s not sure what to make of that statement, and he’s really not sure what to make of the way she’s looking at him. “And stopped hexing people for fun.”

“I hope,” Draco says, Malfoy-cold, “that after living through a fucking war, and seeing a giant fucking snake eating corpses off the parquet floor of my family’s ballroom, that I’d lay off the teeth-growing hexes and grow the fuck up.”

She shifts away, biting her lip. “I understand. I'm sorry, I really am.”

“Don’t be.” The feeling of peaceful accord is gone, along with any hint of sexual interest. “I don’t usually do this, but – I’ll refund your money in full. Unless you want to set up a second rendezvous, maybe next week. I recommend Blaise, if you’re interested.”

“I’ll think it over,” Ginny says. He half-expects her to storm out, but instead her hazel eyes are wistful. “Thank you. For being open with me.”

“Even if you opt for a refund, the confidentiality clause remains in force.”

“I know that, Malfoy.”

 

***

 

Theo looks like a child waking up Christmas morning to the neighs of his very own Abraxan.

“McGonagall,” he repeats, shaking a contract in Draco’s direction. “I’ve already said you’ll take it.”

He gives Theo a long-suffering look. “Don’t you have enough gold?”

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Theo says, still delighted with the world. “She paid triple. McGonagall! How did she even find out about us?”

Draco starts to reply, and Theo cuts him off.

“Not that it matters. She signed the contract, and once you’ve met with her, she can’t just turn around and dob us in. We’re safe from her, safe from Snape, Filch doesn’t even know what Polyjuice is, Dumbledore’s got bigger fish to fry –”

“We’ve made it four months,” Draco says. “We’ll make it to the end of the year.”

Theo sighs rapturously. “And the Ministry can’t touch a Knut of it. Our own money, Draco. We’re free.”

“For a year or two, at any rate.”

“Long enough to get a flying start.” Theo grins. “McGonagall asked for Wednesday night. She’ll provide the hair and explain things once you arrive.”

“Arrive …”

“At her private quarters, of course.” He elbows Draco in the ribs, almost hard enough to bruise. “Private _hind_ quarters, nudge, nudge, wink –”

Draco elbows him back, definitely hard enough to bruise. Theo tackles him and they scuffle as the contract drifts to the floor.

Greg walks in, sees them rolling around trying to punch each other’s kidneys, and walks back out.

 

***

Seated on a well-scratched couch in enemy territory, Draco finds himself saying something he never imagined in his wildest dreams.

“It’s all right, Professor McGonagall. Please, I’ve done this before, and there’s a strong confidentiality clause on that parchment. Just tell me what you need.”

The elderly woman beside him lets out a shuddering breath. “Very well. I – thank you, Mr Malfoy. I must say you’re being very professional about all this.”

He smiles his most charming smile, the one he shows Potter now and then just to fuck with his head. “Let’s start with the potion. You say I’ll be playing a person who is sadly deceased.”

“My first love,” says Minerva McGonagall. “Dougal McGregor, his name was. Owned the best farm in Caithness.”

“You know that longer than one moon cycle –”

“He died many years ago,” she says. “And yet, I believe this will work. Up to now it’s not been worth the sacrifice, but I understand you have perfected the vocal aspect. Is this correct, Mr Malfoy?”

“Absolutely.” He paused. "Do you mean _human_ sacrifice, or ..."

She sighs again, then stands. “I’ll show you.”

Her quarters are spacious and warm, plain with accents of muted gold. One wall of her sitting room is taken up by a floor-to-ceiling cage. The cage has crystal bars, behind which swarm perhaps thirty butterflies. Their wings are iridescent, multicoloured: cat’s-eye green, peacock blue, hibiscus pink. Each bright wing reflects the firelight in tiny broken pieces, shifting mosaics against the white walls.

“Each butterfly is a living cell,” McGonagall tells him. “Transfigured well before my – my lover’s death, and maintained continuously. For these cells, it is –” Her voice breaks. “It is as though he never died. They are living things, Mr Malfoy. One of them will work in Polyjuice.”

He feels a swell of admiration. “That’s brilliant, Professor.”

She laughs. “Thank you, Mr Malfoy. I understand that this is an experiment, of sorts. If you wish to publish any findings, leaving out any intimate details of course, I would appreciate your acknowledgment – for Dougal’s sake. He was a Muggle, you see. A victim of the Dark Lord.”

The butterflies swirl as if in response.

“I’m sorry,” Draco says. It seems terribly inadequate.

“So am I.” With a visible effort, she says brusquely: “It may be relevant that he was a Muggle. The usual strictures of dying magic may not apply. It is known, of course, that one may Polyjuice into a Muggle, and maintaining life in the cells after death by Transfiguring into another form –”

She spoke for a few minutes, seeming to draw comfort from the pedantry. Draco could sympathize. He understood camouflage.

“… and naturally, once we’ve seen that the Polyjuice works, I will take a de-aging potion.”

“Not too young, I hope,” Draco says gallantly, and she laughs.

“I can see why you’re so popular, Mr Malfoy.” They watch the butterflies, now swooping in a gentle murmuration.

After a moment, McGonagall lifts her hand. A single butterfly slips between the bars and floats over to perch on her knuckles, wings opening and closing in heartbeat time. Draco glances away as she whispers to it.

“Take out the potion,” she finally says. “He knows what to do.”

When he opens the vial, the butterfly rises, flutters its wings once in seeming farewell, and dives in with barely a ripple. When Draco stirs the potion, it takes on the glowing pink of the butterfly’s wings. He’s never seen so lovely a potion, except for Felix Felicis.

“Are you sure he was a Muggle?”

“Quite sure.” Her voice is trembling, but her eyes are fixed on the potion. “He called me Minnie. And I loved him more than anything, except for magic.”

When he drinks the Polyjuice, it tastes of strawberries.

The change broadens his shoulders first, and the muscles of his chest and arms thicken. Even if McGonagall hadn’t told him that her lover owned a farm, his hands would give it away. The raw strength reminds him of Charlie Weasley. There’s no mirror, but he can tell from the shape of his nose and jaw that Dougal McGregor was an uncommonly handsome man.

He is also unquestionably Muggle. Draco feels not so much as a flicker of magic, and the feeling will take some getting used to.

He stretches, playing for time, and McGonagall watches. She seems frozen in place.

“Oh, my dear,” she whispers. “Tha gaol agam ort gu bràth.”

“How does this sound, Minnie?”

Her faded blue eyes are luminous with tears. “Dougal ... I know it’s not you. But my God in heaven, it’s good to hear your voice.”

She blinks, regaining control, and picks up her own vial. “Someday, Mr Malfoy, I want to know how you managed to replicate regional accents in Polyjuice. I’ve underestimated you.” She toasts him and downs it in one.

It must be one of Severus’ brews – an easy guess, since he’s the nearest Potions Master – because the de-aging is smooth and seemingly painless. The iron-gray hair darkens to glossy black, brightening her eyes. Her face is strong-featured, a bit imperious; her mouth is full and rose-coloured. He feels Dougal’s body stir in response.

This is turning out slightly different than expected.

“How far back did you go?” he asks in a rumbling voice.

“I’m eighteen,” Minerva replies, her voice clear and sweet. She glances down. “Oh my. I’d forgotten …”

It’s no strain to put an admiring look on Dougal’s face. “Ye’re a bonnie lass, Minnie.”

“‘And I will love thee still, my dear, till all the seas gang dry,’” she murmurs. “I never came to you as a woman in life, my darling, and this is the merest shadow of what might have been. But by God, I’ll take it.”

She’s Transfigured her bedroom – she must have, he really can’t imagine tough old Professor McGonagall sleeping under a fairy-lit canopy – and he kisses her in the doorway, pressing her gently against the frame. In this body, he’s able to lift her up with one hand.

“His fingers could almost span my waist,” she says, giving him a devilish grin that makes his (Dougal’s) cock jump to attention. “Care to try?”

“With pleasure,” he says.

They kiss, and kiss, and Draco has to keep track of time. He smells the warm rich scent of barley in summer and wonders if she’s conjuring it unconsciously.

“I can wait no longer,” she gasps. “Please, Dougal –”

He doesn’t need to be asked twice. In a few swift movements, he strips out of his robes – he wears only a loose outer set when taking Polyjuice, having learned through bitter experience that pants don’t adjust their size – and undresses her. His hands are shaking a little, and he lets them. A real Muggle would be shaking in his boots, he reasons, seeing Minerva McGonagall at eighteen in the glorious nude.

Those piercing eyes are wide, watching his face. “I’m untouched. At this age, I mean.”

“I’ll be gentle,” he promises, pressing a kiss to her brow.

Even fully aroused, she’s very tight – literally untouched, he thinks – and he has to thrust hard once to break the barrier. Pansy had put a brave face on, pretending it didn’t hurt, and he was too young and stupid to care.

“I’m fine,” Minerva gasps as he pauses. “Merlin, that stings.”

“Still?” He’s holding back, but this body is also a teenager.

“No.” She smiles up at him. “Better now. Please go on.”

He strokes into her, eying the curve of her mouth. She arches and it’s almost too much.

“Slowly, darling,” he murmurs.

“Yes, Dougal,” she whispers back. Her eyes are closed, long black lashes brushing her fair skin. Her hair spills over the pillow like nightfall. She really is lovely.

He tells her so, over and over, rubbing his thumb along the glasscutter peaks of each nipple, making her gasp his (Dougal’s) name. When she shrieks and moans, muscles rippling along his (Dougal's) cock like waves through water, he can’t wait any longer.

“Minnie,” he says, putting as much passion into her name as Dougal’s voice will allow, and those blue eyes open. And he’s able to give her this: the sight of her lover’s face, young and alive, and the sound of her name on his lips as he comes, buried deep in her welcoming heat.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your comments are all gold to me. Thank you for reading!
> 
> EDIT: Just a quick note that Dougal McGregor, McGonagall's first love, is Pottermore-canon.


	8. Realization

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco solves the mystery of Potter's wand, but may have reached a wrong conclusion.

Draco knows damn well that he’s a coward.

He persuades Theo to perform a light Memory Charm – more of a dimming than an erasure, enough to get him through Advanced Transfiguration without passing out every time McGonagall looks his way – and feels much better, although he doesn’t recall why.

“Your instructions were quite clear,” Theo tells him. “‘Just do what I bloody tell you, Nott, and don’t ask questions.’ Oh, and I’m to lift the charm once we’ve graduated. You didn’t want to lose the memory for good. I guess it’s true what they say about Scottish witches …”

He pauses, but Draco fails to take the bait.

“They always leave you wanting moor!”

As Draco strides away, wand dangling insouciantly from his left hand, he reflects that Theo will probably forgive him as soon as the Silencing charm breaks, or someone thinks to look up and sees him bobbing along the ceiling outside the Great Hall. If Theo's lucky, they’ll be smart enough to levitate him before they break the body-bind.

When they’re on speaking terms again, Draco directs him to prioritize the fluffiest PFFs.

A shy, pretty fifth-year girl contracts for Lockhart as a birthday present. A quick trip to St. Mungo’s yields half a dozen strands of hair and several autographed photos, all giving each other the side-eye and smiling vaguely.

This time, Draco sets up the Room of Requirement to his liking: decorated with cages of unnaturally docile pixies and an oak teacher’s desk layered with Cushioning Charms. He hangs a single photo on the wall, remembering the ex-professor’s execrable taste in classroom décor.

In a twist he really should have foreseen, the photo’s occupant is utterly riveted, egging on his doppelganger with huzzahs and wild applause. The girl, a rather charming creature, laughs so hard at photo-Lockhart’s enthusiasm that Draco finds it a challenge not to slide off the desk.

“This was even more of a lark than I’d hoped,” she says, giving him her hand at the door. “You’re a wonderful actor, as well as a brilliant potioneer. I can’t thank you enough.”

He gives her a full-power Lockhart smile and doffs his hat, complete with ostrich feather. “The pleasure was all mine, my dear Miss Greengrass.”

 

***

 

A few days later, a sixth-year halfblood heiress contracts for a Muggle actor. The first name sends an unpleasant shiver down Draco’s spine, but the actor himself is reasonably handsome.

“He looks quite a bit like you, only less disagreeable,” Theo tells him.

For a temporary boost in commission, Theo ventures out into the Muggle world and finds the actor in some kind of _salon_. The man is perhaps eighteen, neither royalty nor a philosopher, and Draco is quite confused until Theo explains that Muggle salons are strictly for grooming and hair-care. He simply waited until the man walked out, Disillusioned himself, and picked a few stray hairs from his collar.

This new body is an unexpected pleasure, loose-limbed and somehow joyful, and its lack of magic hardly seems to matter. Draco caves in to a mysterious impulse and serenades his client with the Weird Sisters’ latest ballad in a Room done up like a concert hall in miniature.

As he croons the last quavering note, she throws her arms around his neck and kisses him with such fire that, for an instant, he feels like an actual rock star.

 

***

 

He can’t ignore Potter completely.

For one thing, their duel seems to have planted a compass in his head. After a few weeks, Draco realizes that the faint pull he feels toward Potter isn’t just the horn, but an actual magical pull.

When Potter walks past him one day and there’s no sensation of prickling awareness, like someone breathing just against his neck, Draco is deeply relieved and – he has to admit – ever so slighty disappointed.

And then Potter, subtle as ever, stops within earshot and says: “Go on, Ron, I’ll meet you in the Hall. I’ve left my wand up in the tower.”

The ghost of Draco Past whispers that this would be an excellent time to hex the Chosen One’s hair off (and then hoard it for Polyjuice, of course). Draco, who spends so much time wearing other faces that lying to himself feels redundant, has to admit that any desire to harm Potter died months ago. These days, when he imagines pinning his onetime nemesis down by the wrists, getting right in his face and really letting him have it, something much more lurid springs to mind.

This line of thought is so pleasantly distracting that he makes it to pudding before lightning strikes. He’s not drawn to Potter, or at least not more than usual; he’s orienting toward his wand. He disarmed him in a fair fight, something he normally avoids with the diligence of any good Slytherin, and now … some connection has been forged. The pull he feels is the echo of phoenix song.

So the obvious question: Does Potter feel the same pull?

Draco takes out his wand and stares at it. What’s the unicorn version – the echo of galloping hooves? What does Potter –

And his grey eyes widen as realization hits. Potter’s connected to his wand. He can sense it, he's been able to sense it practically all year, since disarming a distracted Draco in DADA, back in November  – he all but dared him to guess as much after their exhibition duel.

Therefore … when Potter was practically sitting in his lap on that bed, touching his hair, trying to coax him into one last fling … he knew damn well that he wasn’t Charlie Weasley.

 

***

 

Draco runs all the way to the dungeons. By the time he gets there, he’s well out of breath and his wand is fountaining angry gold sparks.

 _He was taking the piss_ , is all he can think. _The whole time, he knew – if I’d only said yes – no, he would have laughed, how pathetic are you, Draco Malfoy –_

His mind projects the scene: himself in Weasley’s body, strong hands cupping Potter’s jaw, tongues sliding together … collapsing back into his pale-haired, pointy-faced self, and Potter laughing, jeering, shuddering with theatrical repulsion …

“ _Reducto!_ ” Draco screams, and blows up the hearthrug.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Greg shouts from behind him.

Draco whirls and points the hawthorne wand straight at his head.

The larger boy freezes, then straightens his back. “Go on, then,” he says. “Better you than some.”

The words, spoken with glacial calm, pierce Draco’s heart.

“I didn’t – Greg, I’m not going to curse you. I didn’t even know you were here.”

“That makes a change.” He glances at Draco’s wand. “Better?”

Draco sees that it’s stopped sparking. He still feels heartsick, but not so much like destroying the world.

“You mad about Potter?”

He rears back. “How do you – not that I’m saying I – but what do you mean?”

“I know you can’t take your eyes off him,” Greg says simply. “I know you’ve been eating poorly and turning round every few minutes to mark where he is. I know you, Draco. You’ve got it so bad it’s like a disease, and if you keep on like this you’ll burn yourself to ashes.”

Draco huffs a disbelieving laugh. “Not a word all year,” he says, collapsing into the nearest chair. “Not a sodding syllable, and now this.”

“You startled me,” Greg says mildly, and then they’re both snorting laughter. He feels a weight lift that he'd been carrying unaware, and when Theo comes in and shakes his head at them in mock disapproval, it really feels as though everything will be okay.

If only he can ignore the plaintive call of Potter’s wand, now blazing a path from the Great Hall to Gryffindor Tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I aged Tom Felton up by eight years or so to make the actor's PFF possible and not horrifically underage in this story's timeline. Sixteen is the age of consent in Scotland, so Astoria squeaks by in her scenario. Draco, of course, is seventeen.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed the two PFFs touched on here. Short chapter, but a good bit of plot advancing, and frankly I wanted to put this up before more time passed. Pollen has really been hitting my part of the country hard this year, and I managed to cough so hard that I injured my back a day or two after my last post. That healed, at least mostly, just in time to catch a spring cold. I have much more appreciation for authors who update like clockwork, no matter what real life throws at them, and I've learned that I'm not one of them.
> 
> Finally and most important: I appreciate every comment, bookmark, and kudos (kudo?) more than I can say. Thank you all so much for reading. I estimate two more chapters to go. My Snape (Snily) one-shot took an unexpected turn and may end up tying in slightly with this fic, so I'm working out the kinks on that one (no pun intended) (really, it's quite conservative, as they are in fourth year) (and we all know graphic Snamione is almost always hotter than graphic Snily).


	9. Fascination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even during an unusually intense assignation, Draco can't get Harry out of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took awhile, and I'm grateful to Desert_Sea for her requested Polyjuice guise. Draco is paired with an OC here, and this marks the last het of the story. I'll try to put out the next chapter or two more quickly, but my work schedule picks up this time of year. Excuses, excuses :)

Draco awakens one morning from uneasy dreams and spends a good hour staring at the slowly lightening green water. He feels more hurt than angry, which is a bit pathetic.

At some point, he realizes that not only was Potter playing the fool, flirting with “Charlie Weasley” in an attempt to get some kind of reaction from Draco, maybe even setting him up for a stint in Azkaban for sexual deception via Polyjuice …

… he had also cheated. In an exhibition duel.

That really went beyond the pale.

The slight twinge of pride Draco feels, knowing that Potter essentially put a Trace on his wand and still lost their skirmish, is drowned out by his disappointment.

The worst of it is that even angry and hurt, Draco can’t stop wanting him. The thrum of Potter’s movements about the castle, marked by the holly wand’s unceasing song, makes it impossible to put him out of his thoughts - and when has he ever succeeded in ignoring Potter, anyway?

A small, ashamed-sounding voice in his head wonders if Potter feels the same; whether he thinks about Draco constantly, drawn by the hawthorne wand.

But the new Draco, the sharp-edged, post-war version, refuses to brood for too long. When Theo practically dances into the dorm, a manic/avaricious gleam in his eye, he forces himself to sit up.

“Did I miss breakfast?”

“No, Sue and I went early,” Theo says. “Never went to sleep, actually. I think she might be the one, Draco, I really do.”

“Is that what’s got you –”

“I have your next contract sewn up,” he says. “Same fee as McGonagall’s.”

“Who is it?”

“Snape,” Theo says, and Draco comes within a kneazle’s hair of cursing him.

Fortunately for him, Theo hastily adds: “You’ll be Snape, I mean. Merlin, I did not need that in my brain. _You’ll_ be Snape, and the client isn’t even a Hogwarts girl. It’s perfect.”

Draco’s wand crackles. “What do you mean, ‘not a Hogwarts girl’? I’m not whoring for all of bloody Europe, Theo.”

Theo has the gall to look hurt. “I hope you know me better than that, Draco.”

“Bad enough that I’ll have to play Snape.” A small, mean voice pipes up that it serves Severus right. As if the familiar sting of Potter-induced humiliation wasn’t bad enough, the taste of poorly brewed Diplomat’s Draught had stuck around for hours, more tenaciously disgusting than Botts’ earthworm-flavoured bean.

“Sue doesn’t know about all this –” Theo nods at the surveys, still piled on Vince’s old bed “—but she told me in Potions one day there are quite a few girls who wouldn’t mind breaking off a piece of that.”

“What the fuck does that mean?!” If it’s Dark, he’s stunning Theo and leaving, contract be damned.

“It means there’s an untapped market, if you’ll forgive the expression, of women who’d pay a pretty Knut to bang our esteemed Head of House,” Theo says. “Specifically a less critical, more hygienic version. I assume that explains his poor showing on the survey. You’ll provide Well-Groomed Sexy Snape for nearly a thousand Galleons.”

Draco sighs. “Who is she, Theo?”

The manic grin resurfaces. “Sabine D’Oiseau. Sabine _Flamel_ D’Oiseau.”

***

The Flamels have flocked to Beauxbatons for nearly seven centuries. Sabine, a many-times-great-granddaughter of Nicolas and Perenelle and close confidante of Fleur Delacour’s, attended Hogwarts in her seventh year, cheering on her classmate in the Triwizard Tournament.

This is all Draco knows about the woman he’s scheduled to shag during the next Hogsmeade weekend, the last of his Hogwarts career. He supposes sex with a woman of such illustrious heritage is a pretty good way to spend it, but for some reason he feels uninspired.

“Her specialty is Potions related to alchemical processes,” Theo tells Draco, patting the contract lovingly. “She told me, poor creature, that despite sitting on a front bench all year, batting her eyes, dropping her quill and so on, Professor Snape never glanced at her twice. Her grandmother left her a vault full of gold, and according to Sabine, this is ‘ _un petit cadeau pour moi_.’ That means – ”

“I do speak French, Theo.”

“I know! That’s why this is a perfect PFF,” he says, now tapping the parchment in an irritating manner. “It’s all about the voice, she says. Makes sense, I suppose, Merlin knows even with a bit of polish old Snape’s not exactly –”

“How does she know about us?”

“Sue got to know her during the Tournament, and she's still friends with Fleur Weasley. They all met up at some cottage during the hols, and I suppose it just came out. There may have been firewhiskey involved. Sabine told me that it was strictly _entre femmes_.”

“So Bill Weasley doesn’t know about PFF,” Draco confirms. “Or that his wife’s friend, a direct descendant of _Nicolas Flamel_ , is _chaud_ for his old Potions teacher, ill-tempered greasebat of the dungeons.”

“Now, now,” Theo says, with the air of a man who will not shortly be gazing horrorstruck (and grudgingly impressed) at Snape's nude body in the mirror. “To each their own.”

***

Draco reserves a suite at the Three Broomsticks, with an extra incentive in gold for privacy, well in advance of the Hogsmeade weekend. By the time Sabine knocks delicately at the door, he’s managed to finish Transfiguring his robes into a reasonable facsimile of Severus’ armour. The button shanks are breakaway, since they only have an hour. (With his luck, her wildest fantasy is undoing all two hundred of them with her tongue. It may well be – her contract was, like McGonagall's, a bit vague.)

He rises to answer, giving his hair a last despondent once-over. At least the man was hung like a freaking Horntail.

“’Allo!” Sabine says cheerfully, gazing up into his eyes. “Ah! _Une ressemblance parfaite_.”

“ _Je vous remercie_ ,” Draco replies, kissing her hand and casting a discreet _Muffliato_. Snape’s baritone rumbles in his chest like dragonfire. “I’m afraid I don’t know exactly what you want with me, Miss Flamel. Perhaps I could follow your lead – or take control, _si vous voulez_? I assure you, per your contract, I am at your service.”

She is short and slight, with straight brownish hair and almond-shaped blue eyes. Next to Fleur, she would fade into insignificance. No wonder he’d never noticed her, despite the famous name. It would take an unusual girl, especially one who claimed no especial beauty herself, to befriend a part-Veela …

… and as the pieces click together, a moment too late, he draws in a sharp breath – and as those strange eyes meet his, the allure crashes down like a wave, leaving him dazed and choking in its wake.

“I want you under my heel, Severus Snape,” she tells him. Her voice, underlaid with a liquid trill, compels him like a siren’s.

When he lies down on the faded carpet, trying to flatten himself for her to walk upon, she laughs and places one open-toed sandal on his back.

“The safe word is ‘ _pierre_ ,’” she tells him. “You will use this word if anything I do causes you pain or discomfort, or if there is anything you do not wish. Nod if you understand, shake your head if you do not agree.”

He nods. The words seem to fall through a blissful haze, but he does understand.

“ _Bon_ , such a good sport,” she says. “This is important to the English, I know. To be the good sport. And I feel that you are good sport for me, Severus Snape. You would never meet my eye, not for a moment – and I so love a challenge.”

She grinds the heel of her sandal, lightly, against his trapezius.

“I will make you scream my name,” she murmurs. “But first … stand up.”

Draco (Snape?) scrambles to obey. He feels wrong-footed, struggling to recall his role.

Sabine seems to understand. “ _Avec moi, cher professeur_ ,” she says, and pulls him over to the mirror.

The sight of his godfather’s face, even paler than usual, jolts him back to reality.

“You see how striking you are,” she murmurs, stroking his arm. “Such character. You will tell me how desperately you want me, and you will make love to me as though this is your last day with a woman in this lifetime. Nod if you understand.”

He watches Severus nod, the black eyes glittering almost feverishly.

“Ah, so sweet.” She glances up at him and smiles, showing small white teeth. “ _Parlez-moi, professeur_.”

And he does. Switching between English and French like a trick rider leaping from horse to horse, he pours a stream of worship in her ears and means every word. She resists the effect of Snape’s voice, at first, that nearly inimitable silk and charcoal, but as he nuzzles and begs her to rub her sweet velvet cunt in his face, she begins to tremble.

He licks and sucks and worships her until she breaks apart, coming with a high-pitched cry that seems to resonate through his body, as though his bones had turned to tuning forks. Her nails change, just enough to really claw the shit out of his back, but he doesn’t mind.

“You are so lovely,” he murmurs, voice gravelly and sated-sounding. “I can deny you nothing, what will you have?”

“You inside me,” she gasps. “Ah, _je vous prie de m’aimer, prenez-moi_ …”

“ _Je suis etourdi par votre beaute_ ,” he whispers, and enters her carefully.

He needn’t have bothered – her body feels light, but she is strong enough to lift and flip him, half-knocking his breath out, before mounting him easily. Her warmth drips down his (Snape’s) prodigious cock, prickling in the air as she hammers up and down like a woman possessed. When the room begins to feel stuffy and heavy with the citric smell of her sex, she snarls a wandless cooling charm.

Draco (Snape) throws all his remaining strength into holding on. There’s not much fear of slipping out, not with this enviable length, but there’s a small chance she will knock them both off the bed.

When she pauses, head cocked inquisitively, he drives up into her and moans, pitching it from his toes. Her eyes widen and flutter and she comes around him with a glorious shriek. As his hips surge she sinks down and twists, wringing her name from him just as she promised.

And even through the Veela haze, Draco – hidden inside Severus’ quaking shell – thinks: _Harry._

  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Corrections to French are welcome. I took it in high school and college, but it's been awhile and I relied on the internet. Coming up next: Hermione approaches Draco with a request for a pre-N.E.W.T.S PFF. (I am not addressing N.E.W.T.S. in this fic. As far as I'm concerned, they happen around the sex and no one is stressing them.)
> 
> I love and cherish all of your comments, kudos, and bookmarks. Thank you for reading.


	10. Concatenation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco agrees to one last PFF before NEWTs, but something goes awry.

Draco doesn’t have the energy to panic. So he’s infatuated with his Gryffindor nemesis. There are worse things in the world.

He’s lived with them.

Sabine thanks him profusely in French and English, praises him for a perfect encounter “without the strings,” and kisses him on the cheek before leaving. The touch of her lips drags him up from an intoxicating depth, and he spends the next hour spread-eagled on the bed, taking deep breaths and trying to clear his mind.

He is jolted out of a near-stupor by the holly wand. Potter seems to be haunting the bar; the sensation (and the faint, infuriating phoenix song) pulls Draco out of bed, cursing.

When he stomps down to the bar area, he sees Tom glance up and look away, suddenly very keen on cleaning glassware. Potter’s at the bar. He throws back his pint and follows Draco out into the alley.

“You all right, mate?” He sounds genuinely concerned.

“Fine,” Draco snaps. “Are you following me around now?”

“I didn't even know you were here,” says the Chosen Twit. “You sure you're okay? Only you look like you've just seen - well, not a ghost ...”

He shouldn't be charmed by Potter's confusion. It's not a rare creature, Merlin knows.

“I fell asleep and woke up disorientated. If you'll excuse me, I've got -” The floo is inside the pub, the one he just stomped out of. “I've got a hair appointment,” he says with as much dignity as he can salvage, and walks away.

The phoenix song pulls tight and, finally, breaks as Draco Apparates back to the Hogwarts gates. The effort saps his remaining strength, and he practically has to crawl back to the dungeons. The password is “restitution,” and he wonders if Dumbledore or Snape is responsible for that little twist of the knife.

Theo returns that evening, his hair adorably rumpled and a detestable spring in his step, and collapses across his bed.

“I’m going to marry that girl,” he says, sitting up. “How’d it go with Mademoiselle Flamel?”

When Theo learns that he inadvertently set Draco up with a part-Veela, he is appropriately chagrined.

“She didn’t – oh, hell,” he says. “You didn’t feel like you were …”

“She just wanted Severus under her allure,” Draco says, heading off any awkwardness. “She gave me a safeword. Her last name is literally 'bird,' I'm sure she assumed that I knew what she was. I really should have known.”

“Still,” his friend murmurs. “We may want to consider whether this thing’s run its course. N.E.W.T.s are right around the corner.”

Draco thinks of his personal vault, the Galleons in stacks of five hundred. Less than dirt, compared to the smallest of the Malfoy family vaults, and more than most wizards earned through years of Hufflepuffian toil.

“I think you’re right,” he agrees. “Do you think Snape knows he’s Occluding so hard he can block a Veela sitting in the bloody front row? The man’s not human.”

“Well, we’ve proved he is, haven’t we? Can’t be a vampire, or the Polyjuice would fail.” Theo looks thoughtful. “At least I assume so. Do you turn into a bat, or half a corpse, or does it just not work?”

“It just doesn’t work,” Draco says, shuddering slightly. Vampire Polyjuice melted the vial, and smelled like floor scrapings in a mausoleum.

“You’re right,” he repeats. “We’ve made enough money.” He gestured grandly. “I declare the Polyjuice Fantasy Fuck officially defunct. Bring on the N.E.W.T.s.”

The next day, Granger demands Severus Snape.

***

“I’ve never felt so awkward in my life,” Theo says. “I couldn’t tell her no. I just said she’d have to deal with you directly. With a bit of luck, she’ll drop it.”

“She cornered me in the library,” Draco replies. “I was informed that her Galleons were as good as anyone’s and she’d pay extra for guaranteed silence. Among other things.”

“I do hope you let her down easy,” Theo murmurs.

“I took the contract.”

“Oh.” He swallows visibly. “Might I inquire as to why?”

“Don’t be like that,” Draco groans. “I don’t want to fuck Granger, Theo. But I do owe her one.”

His friend pales. “You didn’t tell her –”

“No, I didn’t mention the small fortune we’ve made on her back. If it hasn’t dawned on her that she and Potter are my top earners, then she deserves to live in ignorance. Best thing for all of us. But she started all of this, and it seems fair.”

“You don’t mind playing Severus again?”

Draco smiles viciously. “I’m positively looking forward to it. I’m especially looking forward to defiling his precious desk. She asked for that specifically.”

Theo looks caught between intrigue and horror. “She’s really got it for Snape, then.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.”

***

Granger's nervousness might be slightly endearing, if she didn’t show it through a combination of chattiness and savage lip-chewing.

“If he found out, I would actually die of embarrassment,” she tells Draco, looking over the contract in the Room of Requirement. He doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or impressed that she reads every word twice and insists on yet another privacy clause before signing.

“You wouldn’t have to,” he says, rolling up the parchment. “I wouldn’t, either. My esteemed godfather would murder us both.”

“Has anyone else – I mean, am I the only one …”

“That’s confidential, Granger.”

She looks slightly reassured.

“I have to say, I admire the strides you’ve made in Polyjuice verisimilitude,” she says. “I’ve heard of a charm that can change your voice to match, but it requires the other person’s consent, you know, it’s a consensual charm. So a spy couldn’t use it, for example. I suppose if you’re an excellent mimic, like that horrible Moody – or Crouch, I mean to say, if you remember –”

He remembers Crouch, yes. He’d cracked three ribs and could easily have broken his back, dying an ignominious death in front of Potter and everyone.

An ignominious death as a virgin ferret.

“—oh, I’m terribly sorry,” Granger says, her tone shifting. “You know, we realized well after the fact how dangerous it was. You could have been killed. Harry felt especially bad, because he laughed about it even though he knew very well that Animagi feel pain in animal form, so you must have been in real distress, not being in your real mind and getting bashed around like that.”

He decides to change the subject. “Talking of voices and Polyjuice, is there anything you’d like to hear from Sev – from Professor Snape?”

She brightens immediately. “As a matter of fact, I’ve started a list …”

***

Due to Granger’s perverse insistence on using Snape’s actual office, Draco’s final PFF is delayed by nearly three weeks.

He spends most of it catching up on revision, especially Potions. He needs not just an Outstanding, but a virtually perfect score. His savings should last a few years, but he needs a mastery in order to sell improved versions of existing draughts. As Severus informed him, “No one buys experimental potions from amateurs. Twice.”

Theo spreads the news that Draco has effectively retired. “Lots of disappointed fifth-years,” he muses one evening. “I’ve had three people tell me they were saving up for Potter as a coming-of-age present.”

“Granger’s the last,” Draco says tersely. After taking some time to recover physically, he’s realized that the Veela thing – specifically the loss of control – shook him up mentally as well. Not much, but a little.

Then there’s his other loss of control, the involuntary longing for Potter that apparently comes standard with a successful Disarming. This is starting to wear on his nerves. Especially the dreams, which have sharply increased now that he’s no longer fucking or being fucked almost daily, and that damned phoenix song. The wand’s pull is almost constant, though faint enough that he can usually tune it out.

Seeing Potter in class, or in the Great Hall, is also straining his nerves. Gone is the winking, insouciant Potter of their duel. The Chosen One rarely looks at Draco these days without that infuriatingly concerned expression. Granger’s started glancing between them suspiciously, and Draco’s just as glad that Weasley Six is in Auror training and can’t throw in his two Knuts' worth.

Granger’s PFF comes up on a Friday. Severus, looking thunderously angry to be going on holiday, leaves the castle after his seventh-year class.

Draco is still not attracted to the domineering witch … but he’s interested, from a scientific standpoint, in how her body feels from the other side. And she paid very, very well; the sex is likely to be passionate, at least. She may be equally bossy in bed, and he won’t have to do anything but thrust occasionally while reeling off whatever insipid phrases she’s listed for Severus to read.

He comes up with a few to amuse himself, while keeping to the shadows on his way to Severus’s office:

_Your hair looks slightly less like a lightning-struck Puffskein than usual, Miss Granger._

  
_You know what they say: a Muggle-born in the streets, a strident harridan in the sheets._

  
_So, does the Kneazle match the curtains?_

He’s so caught up in his own cleverness that, when Severus appears out of nowhere to swoop down the hallway and snarl about curfew, all he can do is stammer.

“I have to – Professor, you don’t understand – aren't you meant to be on holiday?”

But the sour old bat doesn’t give him enough time to spin out a lie (or Stun him, which Draco seriously considers). He even docks ten points from Slytherin when Draco tries to dart in between him and his office door, and as the door snicks closed Draco leans against the wall and swears.

Granger’s in there. Possibly (probably) nude. He waits several minutes, expecting Severus to take one look and flee like a you-know-what out of hell, but nothing happens. Granger must have put up a muffling charm, because not a sound emerges.

No one ever said he was brave. He could just leave her to her fate, pretending ignorance or asking Theo to Obliviate him into actual ignorance.

Or he could call in the cavalry, in the form of Granger’s best friend.

He starts the long walk up to Gryffindor Tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter, as the title suggests, dovetails with Desert_Sea's work, which begins on the other side of Snape's office door. Next chapter will see Draco and Harry tying up loose ends and figuring things out.
> 
> Thank you for your patience, reader! I have a new and improved appreciation for how much work goes into fanfiction, especially the longer works - taking a three-month break (oh my god, it was that long) on a non-epic work is a bit embarrassing, but I hope to wrap it up next week. Again, I appreciate you all, and thank you for reading, commenting, bookmarking, and kudos. Comments are always welcome and loved.


	11. Explanation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco and Harry have a long-overdue conversation.

Draco runs into Peeves on the third floor.

“Snake in the castle!” he bellows, startling a suit of armor so badly its left couter pops off, clanging on the stone floor. “Skinny, bony, stringy-haired sn—”

“Langlock,” Draco snaps, sending the poltergeist off in a goggle-eyed fury.

The stairs are in his favour, for once, but he’s delayed again on the fifth floor by a group of Ravenclaws trundling down to the library. His Disillusionment Charm holds, but he’s forced to wait several minutes while two of them argue over whose N.E.W.T. revision has been more strenuous. It nearly comes to wands, and he’s braced to cast a Shield Charm when one of them storms off and the rest follow.

Potter’s wand sings louder and ever more shrilly as Draco nears Gryffindor Tower, and he’s trying to banish the image of Snape and Granger writhing nudely, and really it’s no wonder he turns a corner and collides with Ginny Weasley. She somehow tangles around him, crushing her schoolbook painfully against his chest and sending them both stumbling into the wall across from the Room of Requirement. (If he never sees a troll in tights again, it will be too soon.)

“I have to find Potter!” he tries to say, except he’s collided rather briskly with solid stone and has to catch his breath.

“What’s wrong?” Girl Weasley sounds surprisingly concerned. “You practically flew up the castle.”

“I have to find – wait, you’re friends with Granger, maybe you …” Draco trails off. His ribs ache, and his breath feels suddenly cold. “How do you know that?”

She raises her eyebrows. “Know what, Malfoy?”

He turns his head back and forth, listening, but the phoenix song is disorientating and he doesn’t know where, exactly, it could be coming from …

“Oh, sorry,” Ginny says. “Finite Incatatem.” And the singing stops.

As Draco opens and closes his mouth like an idiot goldfish, she seems to make up her mind. Before he can object (or even get his breath back), she’s opened the Room, seized his wrist and dragged him inside.

The Room has furnished a strange mash-up of the Slytherin common room and what he assumes is the Gryffindor equivalent: squashy leather armchairs, stone fireplaces with red-and-green hooked rugs, a glass wall looking out on a bright coral reef. Something seems off, and Draco realizes there’s no furniture aside from the chairs. He’s so used to the Room appearing as a kind of bedroom-to-order that it feels incomplete.

“Let’s sit by the fire,” says Ginny Weasley. Her expression is uncharacteristically nervous, dark eyes meeting his before darting away.

“How did you stop it?” he asks. “Potter’s wand. The noise is gone. How did you even know …”

She keeps her face turned toward the firelight. “I’ll tell you,” she murmurs. “But let’s sit down.”

Draco sits, but his mind is far away. Weasley’s voice is clear, feminine, definitely her own, and he doesn’t understand. The only student who may be a skilled enough brewer to replicate his new-and-improved formula is Granger, and obviously she wouldn’t feel the need to shower him with Galleons if she’d cracked it herself.

Speaking of whom …

“Granger’s in there with Snape and she thinks that I’m him, or rather that he’s me – there’s no time to give you the whole story, Weasley, just trust me when I say that terrible things are happening and we have to get Potter!”

“Hermione can take of herself,” Weasley says, unconcerned.

“I don’t think you appreciate the situation,” Draco hisses. “Your friend is down in the dungeons, right now, making who knows what kind of perverse overtures to someone she thinks is me under Polyjuice, but is actually Snape. Professor Snape.”

“I know which Snape, thanks,” Weasley says. “Hermione’s fancied him for months, and besides, what’s he going to do, expel her?”

Draco refuses to let his mouth hang open like a fly-catching peasant. Instead he presses his lips together, stands up, and strides toward the door.

“Malfoy,” Weasley says. He hears a rustle as she draws her wand. As he’s whirling to disarm her, she says again: “Finite Incatatem.”

The wand flies up – she’s opened her hand, he sees her slender fingers splayed and unresisting – and he has a sense of déjà vu as the wood smacks solidly into his open palm.

It’s the holly wand.

“I’ve meant to tell you,” says Harry Potter’s voice.

Ginny Weasley stands up. Her long red hair is streaked with what could be fire-cast shadows, but are not. As Draco watches, the black streaks thicken as her hair shrinks back – 

– as she grows a few inches, rising to his height almost exactly, and her shoulders broaden. Her silhouette rearranges itself, and as Draco watches in horrorstruck comprehension, Potter’s face appears. The scar is last, scribbled like an afterthought.

“Malfoy,” he intones. He takes a half-step, and stops dead at whatever he sees on Draco's face. “I’d like to explain.”

“Would you?”

A twitch of Draco’s wand and Potter is bound to a squashy armchair. The ropes that appear are dark and bristling with fibres, a bit spidery, not at all his usual Incarcerous. He supposes they reflect his state of mind. 

“You've seen me as Ginny before,” Potter says. “Remember when I asked you –”

“You told me you wanted to fuck Sirius Black,” Draco says. “That’s – that’s really sick, Potter. Just so we’re clear.”

“I told you I wanted Sirius,” Potter corrects. “I didn’t think you could do it, but I had to know – I just wanted to see him again. Mostly, I was curious about you.” He gives this staggering admission away for free. Gryffindors.

“Well, Harry,” Draco says, stalking over to the nearest chair and Transfiguring it into something more intimidating. It comes out a bit creepier than he intends, much like the rope, but he’s too furious to care. “I’m all ears. What did you want to know?”

Harry eyes him, sparing a mildly concerned glance for the new chair’s armrests. They appear to be sunbleached Hippogriff skulls.

“Or, and I’m just casting blind here, were you spying on me? Going to run to teacher? Because I can tell you things about McGonagall, Potter –”

“No, that’s quite all right,” he interrupts. “I didn’t talk to any teachers about you.”

Draco glares. “Who, then?”

“The Hufflepuffs,” Harry admits. “And the Ravenclaws. Gryffindor hosted the meeting, so I guess all of them, too. All the ones who were of age, I mean. That was the first thing we established, that you weren’t doing anything, you know, against the law.”

“You called a meeting on me, Potter?!” 

“Yeah, I did,” Harry replies, suddenly less contrite. “As soon as your bloody survey turned up on all our beds. Suddenly half the school’s trying to snatch me bald. I know damn well what you’ve been doing with my body, Malfoy, and you’re beyond fucking lucky I know why you did it.”

The Hippogriff skull under Draco’s right arm clicks its beak threateningly. The Room really is a marvel.

“I know you,” Harry says, unfazed. “I watched you every day for years, Mal – Draco. I know you’re not your father.”

“You’ve something in common, then,” Draco tells him. “His last words were ‘I find myself most disappointed in my son.’ He said that to the Aurors, right before they loosened the chains so he could dry his eyes. Then he ate poison and died. What’s your point, Potter?”

“You’re not a coward,” Harry says. “You were protecting your mother. You think I wouldn’t understand that? Voldemort took over your house. What were you going to do, evict him? You didn’t have a choice. And then it all kept going wrong, but you found a way to pull yourself up.” He stares at Draco as though expecting him to disagree. “It was brilliant, you know, the Polyjuice. Even Hermione said so.”

“Not that brilliant, if you worked it out.”

“Touché,” Harry says, grinning. The intensity vanishes. “But I didn’t.”

He can’t raise his arms, of course, but he jerks his head toward the door and Draco dutifully looks. The book Ginny was carrying when Draco ran into her (him) is lying there.

“My mother’s fourth-year Charms textbook,” Harry says. “She was brilliant, my mother. All the rest of her stuff is gone, I think Aunt Petunia threw it out, but someone saved this. I got it in the mail on my seventeenth birthday – anonymous, and Dumbledore swears it wasn’t him, so I don’t know who sent it. I took it straight to Flitwick. He checked it for curses and told me about this spell my mother created fourth year, and sure enough there it was in the margins.”

“What’s the charm, Potter?”

“Harry,” he corrects. “It’s a voice-switching charm.”

Draco’s stomach drops. “So … it would do the same job as improved Polyjuice. With no overhead for ingredients.”

But Harry is shaking his head. “It only works if both people want to switch,” he says. “So it’s fine for two friends, or for a couple, but not for Aurors in the field.”

Draco wrinkles his nose. “Why would a couple want to Polyjuice?” Unbidden, he imagines himself as Harry, gazing into his own grey eyes, plunging his (well, Harry’s) hands into the moonlight silk of his hair …

“Disgusting,” he says aloud. “Who’d want to fuck themselves?”

“I bet Lockhart would give it a go.”

“You have no idea how true that is,” Draco says fervently, and Harry laughs.

“You must have some unbelievable stories,” he says. “I always wondered what it’s like for a girl. Not with a girl, but you know.”

“I do indeed. You were telling me about the charm.” 

Potter smirks. “You’ll have to untie me.”

“Not yet,” Draco says. “Finite whatever you did to my wand first.”

Harry’s laughing again, in a way that’s less riveting and more infuriating. “I didn’t do anything to your wand, Malfoy. Disarming someone doesn’t link you to their wand – Aurors would go mad.”

The left Hippogriff shrieks, making him wince.

“You have ten seconds to explain,” Draco says calmly.

“What happens –”

“Eight.”

“Fine,” Harry says, not visibly cowed despite being helpless, wandless, and menaced by furniture. “I’ve got this map, Malfoy. It shows me everyone in the castle – where they are, where they’re traveling. When we thought Voldemort might try to storm Hogwarts, Dumbledore fixed it so I could set up a name-based alarm. After you started this whole Polyjuice thing, I just set it to buzz me whenever you were close by. It goes off as soon as you reach the fifth floor, when I’m in the Tower.”

“So you always knew,” Draco says. “No matter who I looked like.”

Potter hears the unasked question. “Who asked for Charlie, anyway? Not many students have even met him, that I know of. I mean, obviously he's well fit —”

“Nobody asked for him,” Draco says curtly. “It was a mistake.”

“I thought you were taking the piss, at first,” Harry confides. “Or trying to get me alone for some nefarious purpose. But the look on your face!” His laughter this time is constrained by the rope, which seems to have tightened. “They say that about snakes, don’t they? They’re far more scared of you than you are of them.”

“Back on topic,” Draco growls. “What did you do to my wand, Potter? Bloody phoenix song morning, noon and night. I seriously considered snapping it and buying another.”

Harry looks guilty at that. “Someone pointed out that it wasn’t really fair, me watching you on the map,” he mutters. “Without a war on, I mean. Wouldn’t let me alone about it.”

“I know it was Granger, Pot—Harry. You’ve got two friends.” And only Granger would nag her best friend to the point of giving up a practical advantage. If he owned a magical object that could track everyone in the castle … although, given his younger know-fuck-all self, it’s just as well he doesn’t. 

“You’d be surprised,” Harry says. “Anyway, we came up with a plan before the duel. When you handed back my wand, I cast a two-way tracking charm. So you’d always know where I was, just like the map. I figured you’d come find me, and I’d get a chance – well, never mind. I just thought we’d be even.”

“That’s kind of insane,” Draco says, and Harry laughs. How he pulls off golden and insouciant while lashed to a chair is a mystery worthy of Merlin himself.

“I’ve felt a little insane all year,” he confesses. “Voldemort’s dead. I did what I was born to do, and I’m not even of age in the Muggle world. All year I've wanted to do something just for the hell of it. No fate of the Wizarding world. Just something I want.” The look he gives Draco is wide-eyed, Potter-earnest, and utterly, cheerfully mad.

I’m about to be hexed or snogged, Draco thinks, and he’s no idea which.

“I envied you a little,” Harry says, and Draco wishes for a Pensieve, just to keep this moment. “I know you needed gold, but it sounded kind of fun, too.”

“Some of it was,” Draco says, surprising himself. “A lot of it, really.”

“Want to see the Map?”

He really does. The ropes relax, and after an uncertain moment he holds out Potter’s wand. His own is still drawn, because although he may be a pitiful lovelorn wretch, he’s not stupid.

Harry swings his arms for a moment, saying something about pins and needles (although Draco sees none), and then takes out a tattered old piece of parchment.

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good,” he mutters, tapping it with his wand.

The parchment blooms with ink. The familiar rooms are scattered with dots, some bustling importantly, many others at rest, and Draco darts a look at the dungeons. Theo is in the common room, snuggled up to a dot labeled Susan Bones … Greg appears to be sneaking toward the kitchens …

… and there, in the Potions Master’s sanctum sanctorum, are Granger and Snape. Her dot is smack in the middle of a rectangular block that Draco, with a slight tinge of nausea, recognizes as a desk … and Severus appears to be standing (or kneeling, or sitting) directly in front of her.

“… oh dear Merlin.”

“Couldn’t have said it better,” Harry agrees. “Good on him. Never know if a bloke is really going to go for it.”

Draco has a horrible thought. “You were never … we’ve never –”

“Merlin, no,” Harry says, sounding horrified. “I wouldn’t trick you into sleeping with me, Draco. I did give Hannah a bit of hair for the Hufflepuff trial run. We all drew straws and I lost. And I owed Parvati one.” He grimaces. “She ripped it right out by the roots, too.”

“And Padma?”

The lightning-marked brow furrows. “… No. Padma Patil wanted to have sex with me?”

“Not exactly,” Draco says. He’s only human and can’t quash his glee entirely. “Padma wanted to be you. Having sex. With Granger.”

“Hermione agreed to that?!” He looks ill, which is a bit rich considering what Granger and Snape’s dots are getting up to as they speak.

“Of course,” Draco tells him. “She loved it. Couldn’t get enough.”

Harry’s eyes start to narrow, and then the Sickle drops. “You use Polyjuice to fulfill … people’s … fantasies.” He pauses. “We are never speaking of this again.”

There’s a surprisingly not-uncomfortable silence. The fire crackles, and the Hippogriff skulls appear to have fallen asleep. Or died, Draco supposes. 

“Do you know when my opinion of you changed?”

“Let me guess,” Draco says. “When I told Ginny Weasley that nobody loved me.”

“I don’t recall you saying that, exactly,” Potter says. “And you didn’t tell me, I asked you. If anyone wanted you just as you are.” He pauses, firelight deep in his eyes. “But I already knew the answer.” He sets his jaw, points of stubble glinting like dark stars, and squares his shoulders. If there’s a more Gryffindor pose, Draco hasn’t seen it.

“I already wanted you then,” Harry says. “But I started thinking of you as more than – an enemy, or a Slytherin, or a spoiled – well, anyway, I knew when you were with someone, right? For a PFF. I mean, the Room’s right down the hall. And sometimes I saw them leave.” He swallows, audible in the quiet room. “And sometimes I watched you leave, too. Just to make sure you were safe.”

“So basically,” Draco says, “you’ve been stalking me all year.”

“Basically, yeah,” Harry says. “So … just like any other year.”

And suddenly they’re laughing together. Harry almost doubles over, he’s laughing so hard, and somehow they end up back on the fluffy red-and-green rug, leaning into each other. He touches Draco's jaw, and a heartbeat seems to thrum through each fingertip. His heart, or Harry's, or some magic sparking between them – Draco doesn't know and really doesn't care.

“You made people happy,” he murmurs. The warmth of his body rivals the fire. “I’d watch them leave, and they’d look like a weight was off their shoulders. Sometimes they’d glow. I mean literally glow.” He bows his head, and Draco reaches up and takes his hand. The heartbeat's caught between them. 

“I’ve never made anyone that happy, Draco. Not that I can remember, anyway. Mostly I get people killed.”

“But one of them was the Dark Lord,” Draco tells him. “That made a lot of people pretty fucking happy, Potter. Myself included.”

“It didn’t make me feel anything good,” Harry says quietly. “Killing someone. Especially like that, just – I still have nightmares, but it had to be Gryffindor’s sword, and I didn’t want him to suffer, either.”

“He brought it on himself.”

“I don’t want to think about that right now.” He meets Draco’s eyes again. “Then I saw you in the Leaky Cauldron. I saw the girl, but I didn’t know you were there, and then – you looked really out of it. Like you were barely holding on. I tried tracking her down after you left the alley, but I couldn’t find her. That’s when I thought I should talk to you, tell you about Ginny and the Voice-Switching Charm and all the rest of it, but I didn’t get a chance until tonight.” He looks away, broodingly, and Draco thinks: Gryffindor Pose #2, but there’s no malice even in his thoughts.

“If you give me a chance,” Harry says, “I think I could make you happy.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this was an utter bear to write, especially since I was out of commission for awhile with a wicked virus. I will post again as soon as possible. Slash next chapter :) and I'm as anxious for the payoff as you are! I have a few ideas, but welcome suggestions in the comments ... 
> 
> Thank you all for reading.


	12. Satisfaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Draco and Harry, at the beginning of things.
> 
> Warning: This chapter is slightly more graphic than previous chapters. I debated how far to take things, and it came down to wanting a realistic first encounter between two teenagers in love (or close to). I also couldn't resist the chance for a quick SS/HG scene, in honor of the fic's recipient. (Still in love with your writing, D_s, although I need to catch up on your latest work!)

It’s different when you’re in love.

This is the kind of secret-soulmate-lifebond bullshit Draco has always felt himself quite above, being both pure of blood and pragmatic of spirit, but there’s no getting around it.

Sex is different when you’re in love, or know you could be.

Not least among Draco’s sudden problems is the fact that while he’s done it (more than once and in many positions) as Harry, it’s been well over a year since he drove his own body in bed. He half expects to stall out mid-kiss.

Then there’s his total misreading of the situation, apparent when Potter draws back the moment Draco reaches down.

“Let’s give it a little more time,” Potter says, firelight gilding his rather ordinary features into those of a young god. The god of self-control, perhaps, or noble sadism. 

“Both of us – we’ve been through more than most, and I don’t want to rush things when your head is probably spinning. Merlin knows mine is. And we’ve got N.E.W.T.s –”

“You sound like bloody Granger,” Draco says, and his nemesis laughs.

“I’m about to sound like a blushing virgin,” he says, glancing around the room. “I don’t want our first time here. Not in the Room of Requirement, no matter what it looks like. I want someplace real.”

“The Leaky Cauldron?”

Harry takes this the right way and laughs. “Somewhere like, I don’t know, a flat. Or a house, whatever. I’ll probably end up at the Ministry one way or another, so maybe a flat in London?”

Draco’s not sure what he’s being asked. “A good investment,” he ventures, keeping to firm ground. “We used to have a place in Knightsbridge.”

“If you wanted,” Harry says tentatively, “you could help me find a place. I’d want a spare bedroom, obviously, so if you decided to stay for a few days, or even a week or two, or whatever …”

“Shut up, Potter. Don’t embarrass yourself.” Draco’s gratified to see him smile, and even more gratified to know that he’s not alone in this feeling of giddy uncertainty. It’s not unpleasant, rather like getting just this side of legless on very fine wine. 

“I have no idea what you want to do after Hogwarts,” Harry says, looking concerned for some reason. “But if you don't have plans yet, just for the summer, maybe think about it.”

“Hmm,” Draco says, leaning forward so the firelight limns his own aristocratic profile in gold. Harry’s wide-eyed, mesmerized, and Draco wonders if he is the snake or the charmer in this moment. “I can do that.”

Those green eyes half-close and Harry sort of lunges for him, and Draco doesn’t even care about the lack of finesse (except once when their teeth clack rather hard, but Harry swears at his own clumsiness in an endearing undertone) because, well, it’s different when you’re in love.

Or know you will be.

***

The ceremony, conducted in the sweltering heat, is predictably dull and never-ending, with Dumbledore laying down a tortuous speech peppered with so many odd phrases and Muggle idioms that Draco’s convinced the old crock lost some kind of bet with McGonagall. When he announces that those seventh-year students who have “seized the brass ring” and “become the authors of their destinies” should stand for one last round of polite applause, Draco stays seated and meets Harry’s eyes. 

He’s also opted not to stand, and Draco wonders if it’s the recognition he doesn’t like or simply the suggestion that any of them have ever been fully in charge of their own destinies. 

Neither of them is leaving on the train. Granger isn’t leaving either, for some reason, but Weasley’s walked up from Hogsmeade to see them graduate and is now returning to his brother’s shop. Draco heads for the dungeons while the Golden Trio say their goodbyes. 

Harry insisted on lending him the enchanted map during their last week at Hogwarts, with his (Harry’s) dot spelled to chime melodiously upon crossing the castle threshold. Draco appreciates the unspoken apology, especially since he doesn’t really deserve it. All things considered, Harry reacted quite well to the whole Polyjuice situation. He wonders if it’s because the Boy-Who-Lived has been dancing on strings all his life, controlled by puppet masters much harsher and twistier than Draco, but on the whole he’s too relieved to wonder at Harry’s capacity for forgiveness. He’s just grateful to find that it extends to himself.

He’s stretched out on his bed, watching the Map and wondering if Potter will come to him or if he’s expected to meet him halfway, when Granger and Snape’s dots appear in the hallway. They’re moving toward Severus’s quarters, although as Draco watches, both dots stop and seem to flatten themselves against a wall.

“Snogging in the dungeons, professor?” Draco murmurs, but there’s no malice in it. He feels fondly toward Severus and even Granger. It’s strange how happy he’s been, and how wretchedly anxious at the same time. Between Harry’s revelation and N.E.W.T.s, he doubts he’s eaten a full meal in three weeks.

He looks away from the map, wanting to give the nearly overlapping dots a bit of privacy. This charitable instinct turns out to be a mistake.

He’s lying with both hands behind his head, smiling foolishly at his half-closed draperies and thinking happy thoughts, when the door opens and an entwined couple stumbles in. They’ve almost completely undressed, most likely in the common room but possibly in the hallway, and although Draco’s familiar with both players, he has absolutely no desire to watch them in action.

Unfortunately, they don’t see him.

Granger attempts a pivot to the nearest bed, but Severus conjures an immense fluffy rug on the stone floor and fairly hurls them both down. The Potions Master is unexpectedly fit, especially through the arms and chest, something Draco hadn’t bothered to notice while driving him. All that lifting heavy cauldrons and crushing things with pestles, he assumes. His own arms could use a touch more definition, especially compared to Harry’s, and while he’s pondering this deficiency, the couple on the rug have shed their last scraps of clothing and are joyously tussling for dominance.

Caught in that awkward place where you’ve seen too much and must finally interrupt or else commit to voyeurism, Draco opts to lie very still and pretend to be asleep. Or possibly dead from sunstroke. 

The Map chimes, barely audible over Granger’s panting and Severus’s utterly depraved-sounding endearments. Draco has never once been sexually attracted to the man, but the voice is an entity unto itself, and he can hardly blame Granger for succumbing. There’s a deep undercurrent, a depth of feeling that Draco feels more embarrassed to overhear than he feels at seeing them naked and rutting on a dungeon floor. For some reason, it’s making him crave blackcurrant sweets.

They’ve clearly moved on to the uninhibited cunnilingus part of the festivities, going by a series of intriguing sounds and Granger’s breathy moans interspersed with bossy, highly specific direction, when Potter bursts in.

“Thank Merlin that’s over and done with, I thought we’d melt into the seats before – oh my god, Hermione!”

“Fuck off, Potter,” Severus intones, not even raising his head. Draco mentally awards him points for style.

“Where’s Draco?” Harry demands, and everyone freezes.

Keeping an eye on his godfather’s hands – his wand isn’t visible, but Draco knows better than to think it’s out of reach – he twitches aside the heavy green draperies.

“Resting,” Draco says innocently, keeping his eyes on Harry. “The Map chimed and woke me a moment ago. Oh, good afternoon, Severus, Granger. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Granger’s blush runs all the way down. Severus glances at her before conjuring two Slytherin-green silk dressing gowns.

“Gentlemen,” he says, offering Granger his hand and pulling her easily to her feet. “If I ever hear a word about this, I would suggest employing a food taster for the rest of your natural lives.”

“Noted, sir,” Harry says. He has the good sense to glance away as Granger stands, her hair a brambled corona, and fumbles with her robe. Severus’s face betrays him for an instant, and Draco notes the almost fanatical tenderness in his black eyes as he helps her with the sleeves. “Never a word.”

“Very well,” Severus replies. “After you, my dear.”

Granger stalks out the door, and he trails after in a way that is, somehow, predatory and seductive instead of hangdog. How he pulls this off in a green bathrobe, Draco feels, has to involve the Dark Arts in some way. A Scintillation Charm, perhaps.

“Oh my god,” Potter mutters, staring at the floor. “Oh my god, I can never unsee that.”

Draco finds his wand and vanishes the fluffy rug. “Does that help?”

“Loads,” Harry says. When he lifts his head, and their eyes meet, everything goes into freefall.

“Colloportus,” Draco says, sealing the door. “Come here.”

***

It’s awkward, the first time, when you’re in love. 

When he’s playing a part, Draco thinks, it never has to be awkward. But when it’s just him, Draco Malfoy unmodified, in the skin that Harry assures him is silk and sculpted marble and all manner of lovely things, there’s no script to fall back on. His only persona is an eighteen-year-old boy who’s never slept with someone he cared for more than himself and has no idea what to do next.

So they bump noses, once quite painfully. Harry likes to nibble earlobes, and it tickles so much that Draco ends up elbowing him in the stomach. Each waits for the other to guide the story.

“What do you want?” Harry asks. “No, hang on. I’ve been wanting to do this.”

He slides down and takes him in his mouth, obviously savouring the weight and texture, laving the underside before sliding all the way down, shaping slick warmth around Draco's cock before pulling back up with just a hint of a twist - and again, and again, slipping his tongue over the head and sucking lightly, then more firmly, and then all the way down without warning, and Draco comes so hard he sees stars.

It lasts surprisingly long for such a short buildup, each pulse making him feel as though his skull is full of light. But there’s a definite feeling of letdown.

“’m sorry,” he mutters, and Harry swallows quickly and sits up.

“Don't be,” he says, licking his lips. “You feel great. Do me?”

Draco’s cock, dazed and sated as it is, still jumps at the thought.

“I mean, suck me off,” Harry says, blinking myopically. He’s so goddamn adorable it hurts. “Unless you’d rather not –”

“Lie back, you idiot,” Draco says, and Harry obeys.

He makes this blowjob, this culmination, worthy of the Saviour of the Wizarding World: long and slow and never dull, marked by moments of intense passion, with a grand finale that leaves Harry gasping and spent, tumbling Draco’s name in his mouth like a precious stone.

He’s never minded swallowing and this time is no different, although the intimacy of it feels righter and more intense than he’s used to. He kisses Harry’s stomach, feeling the muscles flutter beneath his lips, the tang of salt and musk on his tongue, and flops down beside him on the bed.

“Good?” Harry murmurs.

“The best,” Draco says, and he can feel that undercurrent, sweet and dark and absolutely, completely, irredeemably fucked. Harry’s heart beats fast and strong beneath his hand, his chest sheened with sweat, and Draco flexes his fingers. This is all mine, he thinks; this belongs to no one else. “The very best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, readers, for your kudos, bookmarks, and especially for your comments. Every one of them makes my day, and remo_shagwell's timely cheerleading motivated me to complete and post this last installment. Desert_Sea has been well beyond kind and supportive, and I appreciate her shining example in using fanfic to create a bit of joy for yourself (and hopefully others). I'm working on a few shortish fics (and won't rule out a oneshot PFF addendum), but as you can guess from this posting schedule, my time isn't really my own most days. Again, thank you all for playing with me in this best of fandoms. And bless Jo Rowling for granting us permission to interpret/expand/do naughty things with her work.


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